Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

The premise of Richard Stott’s Afterparty is how he hit his mid-30s feeling he had nothing to show for it while his friends have started settling down and finding new interests. Can he be one of the ‘rising balloon’ free spirits not following this path? 

While the set-up sounds generic, Afterparty spins off in sometimes unexpected directions, with Stott coming at the story from multiple angles and sharing some unique life experiences. 

Central to his story is the Poland Syndrome that left him with underdeveloped muscles and how it has affected him both growing up and as an adult. He talks movingly about how living with a physical disability has affected his mental health, and his need for self-care.

Stott discovers he is treated as either being ‘too disabled’ or ‘not disabled enough’ for castings and auditions, leading to an existential question: am I disabled or not? He studies the Equality Act 2010 in search of answers and turns this into an audience participation game show, testing different scenarios. It’s a smart idea but one that’s a bit rushed in the delivery and lost in the moment.

Being from Yorkshire and now living in London, Stott has some nice lines on the north/south divide, but a lot of the comedy comes from little details – for example, how he names his houseplants after British TV personalities – and tangents such as whether it’s possible to be both Catholic and vegan. 

While this isn’t a show full of laugh-out-loud moments, its always engaging and Stott’s confidence as a performer seems to grow throughout. 

Everything comes together in a final afterparty story, with one of his ‘rising balloon’ friends, that provides Stott with a moment of clarity and epiphany. But the show finishes quite abruptly after 45 minutes (though it’s advertised as an hour) and it feels like the ending could have been extended to greater effect. 

• Richard Stott: Afterparty is on at Underbelly Bristo Square at 4.15pm

Review date: 22 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Matt Carwardine-Palmer
Reviewed at: Underbelly George Square