Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

He’s a grumpy beta male who thinks he ought to be an alpha, a beleaguered but defiant character, throwing sometimes inappropriate, often misanthropic comments at the world. Horatio Gould is basically a white Romesh Ranganathan – at least some of the time.

He takes umbrage at the fact his girlfriend of four years doesn’t believe he’ll cheat, because who would possibly want to sleep with him? Gould’s got a smart-arse answer to that assertion, which he shares smugly. But you know she’s almost certainly still right.

Though from Gen Z, Gould is of a slightly older mindset, and not just because of his deeply out-of-its-time name – on which he has plenty of well-honed sarcastic comments. He has concerns that his is a ‘softer, over-diagnosed generation’ and still feels emboldened enough to offer a comment on the difference between men and women, though it comes with a slight disclaimer for these less gendered times. Not that he’s a misogynist… one of his central assertions is that ‘all men are thick’. 

Perhaps he’s inherited more than he might think from his father, a straight-talking cockney dad who’s recently, and surprisingly, got into New Agey nonsense, providing a conveniently comic juxtaposition for Gould to exploit. The name, Horatio, comes from his parent’s misplaced idea of trying to sound posh and classy but getting it just a bit wrong.

He’s happy to play with darker ideas, such as confessing to a crush on Shamina Begum – as if to prove his sexual proclivities aren’t all vanilla – and can casually comment that ‘it’s been a great couple of years for paedophiles’ with the same tone as if commenting on West Ham’s away form.

Sweet Prince is a gag-filled debut with little philosophising or trauma-dumping, conveying enough context to get from one punchline to the next, but nothing more profound. A few routines seem a little obvious, such as the modern downgrading of who gets to be called a ‘legend’, but most are not.

It runs closer to 45 minutes rather than the advertised hour, with Gould advisedly cutting it short just as it starts to feel like he might be running out of steam. But even so, this is an assured debut from a savvy writer and an engaging performer.

Review date: 9 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard