Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Obviously an intelligent guy, Louis Katz’s Fringe debut is a pushback against dumbing down, primarily in the reduction of every complex issue to an us-versus-them binary: we’re the good guys, they are the Nazis, with the boundary conveniently moveable.

Essentially, Bountiful is a plea for more nuance, or at least just the basic acknowledgement that life is not so black and white. That’s true of his own stand-up, which often makes smart connections to produce rewarding punchlines, but is just as likely to feature a lowbrow dick joke. And there’s no surprise in which land better, with audiences embracing gags with the least complexity, so underlining his central complaint.

A stand-up purist, the American comic wants to earn his spurs in front of crowds, telling jokes. He has no time for the shortcuts of winning fans by posting crowd-work clips, being offensive or getting angry over some fake, trivial issue. That said, he does become enraged by the semicolon; he thinks it unworthy of its prime place on the keyboard as he expresses in a rant hilarious for its overreaction.

The Jewish stand-up enjoys playing in the grey areas of uncertainly, such as confessing a love for Kanye West despite his antisemitic outbursts.  Likewise, he acknowledges that he has some capability for homophobia, purely because of the society most of us grow up in.  

Counterintuitive thinking yields the best rewards, such as his bit on the one sex act where ‘consent makes it worse’ – a routine that started with what ‘the other Louis’ in comedy got up to. Other close-to-the-edge material, such as jokes about his wife’s weight, have a tricker passage.

Despite his plea to see the bigger picture in life, he can also understand the truth of the maxim ‘ignorance is bliss’, imagining what a cacophony of concerns would babble through your head if you were aware of the moral consequences of every minor action you took in your every day. 

Katz seems to have a similarly astute awareness of everything in his show, frequently pausing to dissect how a joke went down. And even a week in, he hasn’t got used to the vagaries of performing in a makeshift free Fringe venue rather than a nice air-conditioned club – and certainly the sweatbox atmosphere in the Counting House does nothing to help the hour build momentum.

But he has command over his material, while his skills as a sharp joke-writer with a love of the craft of comedy are self-evident. You can see why he has a reputation as a comedian’s comedy back in the States.

Review date: 14 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Laughing Horse @ The Counting House