Have you ever dreamed of being #1?

Ana Falcon's high-energy, late-night stand-up dives into her journey of becoming the #1 Mexican in Estonia.

Because if you can make it in Eastern Europe, you can make it anywhere!

This show premiered to rave reviews at the 2024 Tallinn Fringe: 'A powerful feat of storytelling and stand-up' (SourCreamAndDill.com). Ana Falcon, winner of the first-ever Estonian Comedy Roast, is a Mexican comedian based in Estonia. She is part of Pussy Jam Comedy, a collective which creates safe spaces where LGBTQ+ people and their friends can enjoy stand-up in English.

Before her rising stand-up career, she was an accomplished screenwriter, with her works screening at over 100 film festivals. Falcon has been recognized in her native Mexico with a National Endowment for Culture and Arts Youth Creator Grant (2017) and two Nuevo Leon State Awards for Best Screenplay (2011, 2014).

August 21, 2025    A Young(ish) Perspective

Heartfelt comedy that embodies the spirit of the Fringe

Ana Falcon is the number one Mexican in Estonia (aside from maybe three others). She begins her engaging hour in entertaining fashion, and we’re in her thrall right from the start.

She begins with a quick intro about the Fringe, about how it’s a showcase for international artists, and in the spirit of this, she generously wants to introduce us to other artists too. Enter Sandra Tiitson, a comedian from Estonia who warmed us up with tales of her gamer boyfriend, her overly friendly cat, and descriptions of her pole dancing exploits (featuring a beanbag) which were hysterically funny. It speaks volumes of Ana’s character that she shares her stage in such a way, even for 5 minutes, when the Fringe can be such a battle for visibility.

Moving on to Ana’s show, we are treated to gorgeously descriptive tales of her childhood in Mexico, and how she came to live in Estonia. The preoccupation of being number 1 in anything is something she’s told is deeply American rather than European (except for Eurovision), and we learn of how this mindset is fostered in the young Ana by her mother. She could be in the top 5 of her class, and ideally first, but never second (aka the first of the losers). She weaves comedic tales of costume contests, gold star collection, beating her nemesis and the most surprising of pop culture fight songs. We follow her journey to Estonia and her adaptation to life there and her marriage (complete with soup, compliments, winter exploits and mid-summer panic). This is all delivered with charming humour combined with deft skill and precision.

What really gives the show its heart is Ana’s journey with herself and what it means to be her, no matter her environment. This is beautifully surmised in two anecdotes around AAA models and her mother-in-law, which I won’t spoil here, but are insightful, funny and perfectly in-keeping with the Ana presented to us.

This is a show in an unforgiving location, and in an unforgiving time-slot, but the energy and verve that Ana brings to her performance keeps up the energy levels in the room. This starts to flag a little in pace towards the end, probably due to some tiredness in the crowd, and the warm room, but the overall effect is highly polished and deeply enjoyable. Click Here For Review

August 20, 2025    LondonTheatre1

Ana Falcon does well at demonstrating collaboration and camaraderie amongst Fringe performers – it’s one thing to briefly name-drop and recommend other shows, as some shows do, at the end of the performance. It is quite another to invite fellow performers to open the show. Given the nature of the ‘Free Fringe’ (basically, there are comings and goings all the time – nobody is obligated to stay at a paid-for performance either, but there is zero stigma, for both performers and audience members, if anyone walks away from a free show), it might have been confusing for a few people who walked in during the opening act on the night I went along, seeing a distinctly non-Mexican person on stage, in this case Chloe Jacobs, giving a brief run-down of her own show, Twilight: Breaking Down, about erotic fan-fiction which she wrote when she was eleven.

The demographic of people fully conversant in what life is like in Mexico and Estonia being practically non-existent, Falcon must explain both contexts, sometimes in quite some detail, which for a late-night show, by which point in the evening most punters will have had at least (ahem) something to drink, requires a bit more thinking than ideal. Essentially, it’s a good thing in Mexican culture to be ‘the best’. This is not, interestingly, the best according to your own ability, but better than others. Falcon’s formative years were accordingly somewhat marred by frustrations over losing a coveted ‘top five’ spot in her class at school. By contrast, I once heard a Nigerian explain to me that where he comes from, every schoolchild comes first, to the point where if a child were to come home and say they came second at something, their parents would reply, “Second? Are you a fool?” Hashtag everyone first.

Not so, alas, for Falcon, who finds a way of being the best at something, hence the title of the show. This collection of lived experiences is very unique, and I venture to suggest that of the 3,800+ shows at Edinburgh Fringe 2025, there isn’t anything that quite compares to this. A warm and engaging storyteller, Falcon’s show was more informative than comical, more educational than entertaining. Click Here For Review