Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Almost every comedian is making videos these days, expanding their digital profile with multi-platform content, even if that feels like a full-time job that torpedoes the romance of being a stand-up. But there’s only one outlet for Mat Ewin’s meticulously made stupidity: the live arena. That may be a good job, as his nonsense would seriously fuck with the algorithms.

A running joke is just how non-commercial his tech-heavy comedy is, viable almost nowhere outside the Edinburgh Fringe – and even here it’s precarious. He’s doubled down on the complexity this year with two massive screens to add to all the paraphernalia that litters the stage: a VR headset, an exercise bike, a trolley full of gizmos for his reinvention of beer pong. Even his brilliantly bonkers entrance involves yet another camera and its own mini-set.

It’s a massive investment in the stupid. Scenes that must have taken days to film or code fly by in a few seconds. Fifa gets reanimated but made more grisly, he recreates a plane crash, plays the slo-mo scenes from The Matrix at the proper speed – insanely hilarious – and offers an animation of a Far Side-like absurd one-line idea. All that taken together is probably 90 seconds of the show at most.

To slow the dizzying pace he plays some games with the audience, part of an alleged bid to pitch a show to Sky after they so cruelly knocked back his police drama Good Cop Bad Cop (and, yes, there are teaser scenes). Hence the static bike and beer pong set-up, both used to control a video game.

Whisper it, but this might actually work on TV, even if it would ruin the underground status Ewins has been keen to foster. He even his very own Mr Blobby ready to go, in the cute form of the jibberish-spouting alien Bibby.

Not that Ewins is exactly an upstanding authority figure for the little green man to rail against – every blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gag, crafted with precise attention to detail, is proof of his silly, mischievous sense of humour that makes Danger Money such a blast.

• Mat Ewins: Danger Money is on at Just The Tonic at The Caves at 10.30pm

Review date: 14 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Just The Tonic at The Caves