Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

I have to resist the temptation to start this review ‘Inbetweeners star Joe Thomas…’ For this whole hour is about the actor trying to escape the expectations and limitations that come with being in such a huge, generation-defining comedy.

Co-star Simon Bird faced the same dilemma in establishing himself as a comedian rather than a character – which he tackled by releasing a stand-up special out of the blue, recorded in an empty theatre over lockdown.

Thomas has taken the more established route of the Edinburgh show, 13 years after he was last here with Bird and others in a sketch show. So much has changed in those intervening years and Thomas likens his time playing Simon to being in a boy band – an ‘ugly boy band’, admittedly. It was a fun time, but what happens next? Is it possible to have a second act of your career? In this show, as in life, whenever he tries to move away from the topic he finds himself drawn back by its gravity.

He’s witty on the pigeonhole he’s been put into, with an added air of comic frustration that the character he cannot escape is not much like him. Certainly, he’s no so laddish. He’s also 37 – middle-aged, more or less, compared to the teenager everybody thinks he is. 

The existential dread that surrounds him is funny to hear about, less so to live. And the material about being linked to the Inbetweeners is among the best in the show, which must be double-frustrating for someone trying to leave all that behind.

Away from this, talk of social media aggression is a bit more quotidian, though he has a smart and succinct way of expressing things. However, slating Piers Morgan feels like shooting fish in a barrel, even if he deserves and invites opprobrium.

His delivery is a little like that of fellow Taskmaster contestant Mark Watson, if not so intense. He has a similar exasperated turn of phrase and wide-eyed, eyebrows-raised incredulity at some of the situations he describes. 

Thomas doesn’t seem entirely confident in his persona, however, which might be down to his inexperience in the stand-up genre, or maybe down to his innate social awkwardness, which he self-diagnoses as being on the autism spectrum.

Whatever the truth, it’s certainly given him a couple of great anecdotes of career self-sabotage… which might feel like cold comfort in the circumstances. But he tells with winning self-deprecation of an awful audition and a trip to Hollywood in search of a big break ruined by his obsessing about the unimportant.

Stand-up is often built on such self-doubts that actors, by contrast, have to hide, and Thomas has got a good handle on what makes him different. The show’s a bit rough around the edges, but if you didn’t already know him, you’d say this was a promising debut.

Who knows, it might even lead to a role in a big sitcom…

• Joe Thomas ends his Fringe run at the Pleasance Courtyard at 7pm tonight. He is then at the Bill Murray in London from Sunday to Thursday next week at 6.30pm

Review date: 17 Aug 2021
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard