Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

If this is a rebound show, then Ollie Horn has bounced back way too hard.

Greeting the audience as they enter, he's sizing up and sleazily coming on to the women, a pretty bold opening gambit given the close confines of his yurt venue. In truth though, most are too startled or simply trying to find a seat to properly register the aggressive chat-up, and he's playing to those already seated.

Taking the concept of a glow-up after a break-up to its ultimate narcissistic conclusion, Horn's gone in for something approaching character comedy. Inhabiting the ironic persona of a toxic fuckboy, it's one that's yet shrouded in a multilayered haze, only dimly discernible though his steadily puffed vape.

Staring down the barrel of being 32 and single, Horn is pursuing the acquisition of a wife with a capitalistic intensity, the deal to be closed post-haste. Bouncing on his heels, rubbing his palms together suggestively and fingering the buttons of his open, Bohemian-style shirt, his body language couldn't be more overt or flexing harder unless it actually matched the forthright, down-to-fuck entreaties coming from his mouth.

Playing on the caddish sense that just because you're hateful, doesn't mean you're not fanciable, Horn shamelessly shoots his shot with as many of the women present as he can, his repeated appeals for Consent to share his vulnerability a naked perversion of empathy. Meanwhile, to sweeten any engagement deal, he's penned some observational comedy about waxing because that's good, feminist allyship as far as he can tell.

Assuredly improvising around the responses he receives, the appositely named Horn's flirtations are the character, very much the show in addition to his outspoken telling. It even starts to seem like a badge of honour to be the object of his distorted desires, with just a hint of unhealthy rivalry between those that catch his eye.

But these upfront approaches also serve as a bridge between the show's more obviously staked-out bits, injecting a bit of unpredictable jeopardy and a sense of being in the moment into the script. And they're supplemented by any inclement weather and other outside sound bleeds that the rackety canvas of his would-be sultan's seduction chamber suffers from. I could clearly identify Thom Tuck singing about 20 yards away.

While Horn is occasionally flummoxed by the responses he receives, with some perhaps having failed to identify the spoof of corrupted masculinity, there's entertainment in watching him scramble to bring everyone back up to speed.

Although draining the concept of relationships of any romance, the character becomes more obviously pathetic as the show goes on. And there's an underlying sense of genuine heartbreak lurking in his recollections of how his previous relationship foundered, even if the details may have been exaggerated for comic effect. 

At one point, he drops the mask completely to reveal unforeseen difficulties in sourcing bits of his costume, with the mere presence of a solitary young man in an almost exclusively female environment setting off metaphorical alarm bells.

Ultimately, the ridiculous spectacle of Horn teasing his own nipples while gently swaying ensures that he's always going to be at the more cuddly end of the toxicity spectrum, a long way from properly satirising the Andrew Tates of this world.

Still, he's got something to say about how wounded macho pride reasserts itself. And this is an appealing hour from a performer taking a risk and going out on a limb a bit.

Review date: 23 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Jay Richardson
Reviewed at: Hoots @ Potterow