Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Luke Kempner has an energy and commitment that cannot be faulted. He’s got skills – including impressions and a fabulous musical theatre voice – is light on his feet and determined to sell them.  

Already known for his viral Love Island, I’m A Celebrity and Line of Duty parodies, here he cannibalises other popular TV culture and showtunes from Les Mis and beyond. 

This alone would be proof of his entertainer credentials, but he has also chosen to reach into the ‘deep and meaningful’ dressing-up box and talk about what it means to be a man, his qualms about his fitness for fatherhood and his undeniably anguished account of the birth of his daughter.  

The autobiographical show also includes a rap his 16-year-old self cobbled together because he wanted to be friends with the cool kids at school. He pantomimes being mortified by how bad it is, and it is – so why include it? It doesn’t play to his skills.

His worry about not being manly enough (the principal definition of a man here is someone who can put up shelves and they stay up) is the big preoccupation, and he makes much of his campy, musical theatre background disqualifying him. But e should be celebrating that because he’s brilliant at it – the moments which soar are those in which he breaks into song and that talent is unleashed. I know it’s a visceral reaction to being manipulated by the music rather than the content – and he describes how he succumbs to it himself – but if you have a trick like this, work it. 

Kempner’s impressions are meant to be the focus and they do elicit smiles of recognition and more, but the material needs gagging up The voices are good enough, but simply having Boris Johnson harrumph, gasp and splutter is just shorthand; the character needs to say more. Similarly, showing Rylan ‘Omigod’ his way through a bit is a starting point, not the whole thing, while his Harry Kane is all about the tone and vowel sounds, but light on jokes. 

Kempner does have a cracking Line Of Duty story which only he could tell, and it’s the only set of impressions which don’t make the subjects sound clinically thick.  

The personal story of impending, scary fatherhood and the labour ward gives him some depth and when he’s not trying to be funny, he is honest and heartfelt. He has all the performing skills, but would benefit from an additional writer to polish up the gags.

• Luke Kempner: Macho Macho Man is on at the Pleasance Courtyard at 6.40pm

Review date: 11 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Julia Chamberlain
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard