Katie Norris’ superb solo Fringe debut and breakthrough last year established her as a diabolic triple threat of song, stand-up and seething, witchy rage, directed at disappointing men and the Gen Z girls with whom she maintains an ambivalent relationship of matronly agony aunt and snarling jealousy. Now, Go West, Old Maid introduces a worthier opponent for the unstable actor and comic, in her late, fellow thespian father. He left behind a legacy of outward disappointment in his daughter’s career, his magnum opus with which he hoped to transform her fortunes, and a similar, rather intimidating stage presence. This hour is an often deliriously funny handling of grief that’s nevertheless patchy in places.

Norris’ mother is also intriguingly sketched as a woman of enigma. And the comic’s eccentric progenitors inform her role as The Godmother to her friends’ poor kids, with Norris unable (or unwilling) not to warp their little minds a bit with her cynicism about men. Psychologists might spend years picking apart the motivations for her descent into taxidermy, the fruits of her labours amusingly presented in all of their glory. The showtune-like songs are once again great as well. But Country Matters, the deliberately ‘shit’ play that her father supposedly wrote for her isn’t so inspiringly bad that it justifies hauling a couple of volunteers up to perform it, a blip in an otherwise reliably funny hour.

Katie Norris: Go West, Old Maid, Pleasance Courtyard, until 24 August, 7.40pm.