Baby of Colour - Edinburgh Fringe 2026

Baby of Colour

★★★½ An IUD, immigration, Donald Trump and a cat walk into a stand-up show and sit becomes a funny, surreal and unexpectedly moving meditation on whether we should bring a child into this world.

Olivia Xing’s Baby of Colour starts with a deceptively simple question: should I have a baby?

In Xing’s case, the question arrives via an IUD, a gynaecology appointment and the return of Trump to the White House. From there, this surreal, energetic stand-up show spirals outward into reproductive autonomy, political anxiety, immigration, identity, womanhood, Chinese daughterhood, marriage, healthcare and the increasingly difficult question of whether bringing a child into this world is an act of hope or madness.

There is a lot going on, perhaps sometimes a little too much, but Xing is an engaging and highly watchable performer, moving easily between the personal and political, the earnest and the absurd.

The material is particularly strong when she finds the comedy in the collision of worlds: being Chinese-American, married to a Mexican-American, navigating green cards and immigration, speaking English and still being told she is unintelligible, while simultaneously trying to make sense of American healthcare and the politics of reproduction. Her experience as an immigrant and artist gives the show a perspective that is genuinely specific rather than simply topical.

The title Baby of Colour does a lot of work too. It is funny, provocative and slightly bewildering, opening up questions about race, identity, belonging and what it means to imagine a future child when your own identity already feels complicated.

There is also a lovely surreal thread involving a cat, and Xing has an appealing willingness to let the show veer sideways into the unexpected.

Importantly, Baby of Colour feels like evidence of an artist developing her form. Xing first brought a show to Edinburgh in 2023 that reportedly leaned heavily into lecture as well as comedy. Here, the political and educational material is much more naturally woven into the stand-up. The result is less like being given a lesson and more like being invited into Xing’s increasingly frantic train of thought.

At its best, the show is very funny, very personal and unexpectedly moving. It captures something recognisable about political depression: the exhaustion of trying to make personal decisions while the world keeps barging into them.

There are moments when the sheer number of themes threatens to overwhelm the comedy, and the show could perhaps trust its strongest material a little more. But Xing is a compelling performer, and when the personal, political and ridiculous collide, Baby of Colour really lands.

A smart, surreal and often very funny exploration of reproduction, race, immigration and the terrifying prospect of the future, with a cat, an IUD and Donald Trump somehow all in the same conversation.

Review by Kate Gaul