While damning both women with faint praise in making the comparison, fans of Katherine Ryan ought to find plenty to enjoy in Michelle Shaughnessy’s latest nakedly confessional Fringe hour. A Canadian emigre of Irish heritage, Shaughnessy is similarly upfront about the cosmetic enhancements she’s undertaken and her desire to be financially comfortable. Crucially though, unlike her more temperamentally steady, celebrated compatriot, Shaughnessy is not financially comfortable. And considerably more of a hot mess.

Most of her anecdotes are informed by the disconnect between her material horizons and the depressing reality. And where she really scores, at least as a stand-up, is being painfully self-aware as a person and yet seemingly powerless to change her spendthrift habits, or the body dysmorphia that often prompts them. Related without self-pity for the most part, but with a keen observational eye, it’s as if she’s almost as divorced from reality as she is from her husband, with neither quite there yet but impending. This isn’t simply shtick either. Whereas Ryan has always spoken positively about how she was sexualised by her former employers (the restaurant chain Hooters), Shaughnessy faces sharper dilemmas about whether dating older men for cash or selling underwear online tips into prostitution. A grey area festooned with red flags, it’s to her enormous credit that she can remain open-minded, even as she entertainingly agonises.

Funny too about her ageing and fertility insecurities, though there’s a lack of resolution to several of her routines. Still, it’s to be hoped she can find contentment, even if it might necessarily transform her comedy. 

Michelle Shaughnessy: Too Late, Baby, Underbelly Bristo Square, until 25 August, 2.45pm.