Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Ever thought some climate change protesters may be more about virtue signalling and burnishing their ego than solving humanity’s biggest crisis? Well, self-appointed saviour of the planet Ted Hill is unlikely to disabuse you of that idea.

The inconvenient truth is that his attempts to fix a problem he doesn’t understand with solutions for which the adjective ‘impractical’ seems pitifully inadequate are merely fuel for his messiah complex.

Having obsessed about American presidents in last year’s show, Hill’s ADHD mind is now directed at – if not focussed on – what humanity is doing to the planet. A torrent of chaotic, half-formed ideas, backed by PowerPoint slides, cascades out of him. He’s a proper nerd, with a keen enthusiasm for graphs and gimmicks, but paired with the attention span of a mayfly.

Chief among those gizmos is Stephen, an alleged artificial intelligence aid, programmed to act as a comedy support act but quickly turning into a virtual heckler, undermining Hill’s fatuous arguments and raging ego at every turn. Not that you really need an all-knowing robot to point out the flaws in the comedian’s crackpot schemes.

Still, he’s super-enthusiastic about the absurd notions he believes will elevate him to the status of Gandhi or Jesus for his contributions to humanity, even if he doesn’t quite know who David Attenborough is nor be arsed to do the research into polar bear populations. Move the slides on quickly enough and maybe no one will notice.

It makes for a hectic hour, as the audience is flooded (apt) with preposterous ‘facts’ and even more ridiculous solutions. There are plenty of inventively dumb gags here, including some neat running in-jokes, tangentially referred to in throwaway asides.

However, it can feel overwhelming to be battered by them. This is an onslaught rather than a show of varied texture – even interludes such as audience participation have the same manic, unhinged urgency as the rest of this Ted’s talk.

Hill’s enthusiasm for his performance – if not climate change itself - is admirable, even if he is sometimes a bit too eager and scattergun. But then the scale of the climate crisis and what’s needed to address is enough to make anyone’s head spin - and this hour is definitely more fun than a sanctimonious eco-rant.

Review date: 7 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Assembly George Square