Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Bringing a rom-com aficionado’s sensibility to the rough and tumble of gay cruising, the impish Chris Weir’s Fringe debut is an engagingly presented snapshot of a holiday romance that ultimately proves to be little else.

Reacquainted with his bullied childhood self while clearing things from his parents’ house, the Scottish stand-up reluctantly admits to being in his mid-thirties and having never had a serious relationship, his fleeting match-ups invariably doomed for some escalating reason of extreme unsuitability.

Weir has internalised the romantic comedy message that you need to be creative to be worthy of love. Or at least he affects to believe that, whimsically suggesting that he’s got a range of candles in the Gwyneth Paltrow line, but more twisted.

His coming-of-age moment arrived last year with a solo trip to Gran Canaria, where his attuned eye appreciated the meeting of Catholicism and homosexuality, the ribald clash of the two inspiring some wickedly funny quips.

Taking to Grindr, he matched with Zoltan, an older Hungarian gentleman with whom he had an undeniable connection, and the pair maturely agreed upon a no-strings-sttached holiday arrangement.

But Weir soon found himself ​wrestling internally with being the junior partner in the contract, a ‘sugar baby"’ as his richer date paid for everything. Although he didn’t find himself protesting too loudly.

Distraction took the form of the island’s beach dunes, a notorious pick-up spot that he treated as a sightseeing safari, occasionally glimpsing solitary males roaming abroad but keeping his distance.

However, when relations with Zoltan were tested, he found himself drawn back to the sand …

With some angsty, midlife crisis musings on whether companionship means the loss of one’s identity, conveyed with some cartoonishly funny animal act-outs, Well Flung never feels as consequential or character-defining as it’s initially set up to be.

At one point, the story threatens to take a much scarier turn. Yet thankfully, that’s quickly dispelled, even if Weir acknowledges the danger he was potentially in.

There is a happy ending of sorts, several indeed. But chiefly, the comic is left with a slightly better understanding of himself. All very good for his personal growth but a bit deflating from a narrative perspective.

Good, gossipy company throughout, Weir tacks back to the superficial whenever things get too deep or dark. And you’re left with a routinely amusing but really rather throwaway hour - the very definition of a fling.

Review date: 9 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Jay Richardson
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Patter House