Fringe first-timer Alex Stringer tackles Britain’s booze culture and mental health taboo
Making her highly anticipated Fringe debut this August with Happy Hour at Pleasance Courtyard, Stringer isn’t just out to make audiences laugh. She’s on a mission to dismantle some of the most deep-rooted taboos in British society: addiction, sobriety, and mental illness, all through the lens of stand-up comedy.
At just 23, Stringer got sober after years of self-destructive drinking. Now 31 and eight years sober, her journey forms the backbone of a show that’s as confronting as it is hilarious.
“It’s about being a flawed, non-boring, complicated sober person,” she explains. “And how that doesn’t come with a soft-focus Instagram filter.”
Happy Hour follows her from wild drinking days and rock-bottom moments including a now-infamous incident involving vomiting in a taxi and the driver’s panicked use of windscreen wipers to her time in rehab, struggles with self-harm, and psychiatric hospital stays.
What makes Stringer’s show different is her refusal to sanitise or sensationalise. From the absurdity of rehab bingo rules (you can’t shout “line” too triggering for cocaine addicts) to the frustration of seeking mental health help only to be assessed by a student GP, she lays it all out with gallows humour and a fiercely feminist perspective.
But beneath the punchlines lies a timely and biting critique of Britain’s binge-drinking culture and the dwindling resources for those trying to get sober.
“I got help in 2017. If I were 23 now, I don’t know that I’d have the same chance,” Stringer says. “It’s harder to access rehab now. The system’s broken.”
With alcohol-related harm at record highs and a mental health crisis gripping the UK’s younger population, Happy Hour resonates far beyond the comedy circuit. It’s a bold, personal response to a public issue and a reminder of what the Fringe does best: give the mic to those who are telling stories we need to hear.
Happy Hour runs daily from July 30 to August 24 at 6pm, Pleasance Courtyard Bunker 3.