Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

This is Ed Night’s first Fringe in five years, in which time he’s become a ‘content creator’. But don’t worry, he knows that deserves contempt. He even hates himself for being such a slave to the ever-ravenous algorithm and worries about opting out of real life.

This sums up where he is in life, a Gen Zer in his late 20s starting to question - or at least mock - his cohort’s worldview, while still adhering to it. When he says ‘we’ve got to talk mental health,’ his insincerity elicits a laugh from all who know this is such a cliché.  

Night teases how everyone’s troubled these days – in his case OCD and body dysmorphia – as well as the glib sticking-plaster solutions supposed to be a panacea.

At his age, he’s supposed to be thinking about the big issues: marriage, kids, mortgage (as if!) and occasionally he lets these bits of authenticity peek into the show - but never for long. More pertinently, he had his first serious health scare, which allows him to reflect on the toxic masculinity that compelled him to act tough in hospital.

But this is smart stuff done stupidly, eloquent poetry as recited by an idiot. Night never gets ponderous when there’s a dumb pun to be had, and it’s a joke-forward hour, even if the gags were inspired by him thinking about what he expects from life.

Cool and likeable, without trying too hard to be, he’s knowing with the audience, too, just meta enough to acknowledge the artifice of the situation without destroying the dynamic. While he can engross the audience in a vivid depiction of pioneering explorers or Marconi on his deathbed, it’s always in service of some mischievous nonsense.  And do we detect shades of Sam Campbell in the delivery of some of his more incredulous lines? 

He’s also cheekily reassuring though some of the gig’s more contentious topics, extending an analogy about navigating choppy waters to get us through material about child pornography enthusiast Tom Binns or harrowing memories of his parents having sex. 

But there’s certainly no big agenda here, just funny bits thrown together with an imaginative, yet still box-checking, callback to wrap everything up.  Five years on, Night may no longer quite be at the cutting edge of the zeitgeist, but he remains a sharp and funny man of his time.

Review date: 2 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy (The Hive)