Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

As any experienced Fringe attendee knows, Monkey Barrel’s Hive venue was built on top of an ancient lake of primordial sick that’s still bubbling somewhere down there underneath the city. Nothing else could account for the mystical persistence of the stench. 

Yuriko Kotani, however, has pinned up a blessing she received from the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto and cast a certain spell, and for the first time in my life the smell is almost absent. It seems Kotani and her new show are both more than they appear to be.

Kotani’s stock in trade has long been the humour she finds in contrasting the UK with her home country of Japan, and she still threads those observations through her narrative. But her work is also taking on more of a personal dimension as she reveals some vulnerable truths about herself.

Based on shorter sets I’ve seen, I would not have categorised Kotani as a vulnerable performer. In fact, her tone on stage is characterised by an effervescent sturdiness. Earnest, upbeat and resilient, her early routines in this hour have a lot of that cheerful, can-do attitude, as she describes using the horrors of the Megabus to ‘purify her mind’ and, in a slightly woolly section, battles with some comical dual meanings in the English language. 

But her humour, gentle and inclusive as it is, really belies the show’s ultimate emotional intensity.

Getting into more autobiographical territory, she describes the fear of experiencing the 2024 New Year’s Day earthquake alongside her nephew, who she touchingly describes as the love of her life. 

Noting his reaction, she mentions off-handedly, ‘kids in Japan have to be so reserved.’  That little statement feels like it says a lot about Kotani’s comedy; this show is in large part about pushing back against cultural repression – repression of her joy in performance, and repression of the sorrow she feels about losing touch with her father.

When she’s talking about her dad and her cheery character finally breaks, it’s truly emotive, leagues beyond the serious moments you get in most Fringe shows. Under the jokes there’s a deep well of intense feeling that Kotani is experiencing afresh every afternoon; even more than three weeks into the Fringe she’s visibly shaken by what she’s going through on stage, and your heart is liable to ache in response. 

Quite unexpectedly, this is one of the most moving and emotionally powerful shows of the year.

Review date: 24 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Tim Harding