Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

This is one of those clown shows where an intimidating performer pleads and cajoles reluctant audience members to join them on stage. Then as soon as one punter plucks up the courage do so, they get berated for being a useless tosser for even trying.

It seems counterproductive at best, mean at worse. Yet still such shows proliferate at the Fringe.

Gemma Soldati’s alter-ego is particularly unpleasant, but then she’s supposed to be, given she’s a grasping banker in this crude satire on the financial industry. Dominatrix-level demanding, she summons people up to pour her tea – they always get it wrong – squirrels away audience valuables and hands out loans that literally come with strings attached.

There’s a general reluctance to be humiliated, but enough willing souls to make it work. Though on this late-night performance, Soldati also had to cope with a manically ill-behaved woman, squawking with laughter at jokes she’d apparently made up in her own head and occasionally wandering the aisle. A massively off-putting presence who, frankly, should have been ejected but instead just had to be ignored as best she could.

The Poor Rich makes no cleverer point beyond the idea that bankers are all coked-up sociopaths who would stoop to anything to make money or save their skin when it all comes tumbling down. It’s more a howl of outrage than anything considered or clever.

Soldati – who has a phenomenally garish outfit – is excellent when she explodes in a wild frenzy of panic when it looks like her corrupt capitalist enterprise is about to collapse, but these couple of minutes aside, her stubborn alter-ego is mostly wearisome, making it difficult to convey the playfulness needed.

It’s as much fun as another interest rate rise.

Review date: 14 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Assembly Roxy