Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Ian Lockwood is a toxic narcissist with a main character energy that’s off the scale. Or at least his alter ego is, an arrogant, out-of-touch pop star with 120 No1s under his belt, but now on a farewell tour.

There’s nothing left for him to achieve, so at the end of tonight’s show, with Taylor Swift’s levels of crowds and spectacle, he’s going to end his life. And he can’t back out; he’s contractually obligated to go through with it, his suicide fully monetised.

The towering self-absorption is brilliantly played. ‘Ugh’ is his reaction when asked about friends and loved ones. The performance is an arch parody of the ‘independent girl who don’t need no one else’ trope taken to extremes.

He is, in short, a lot. Yet when it comes to showmanship, his raging ego is an asset, making him confident, charismatic and fearlessly flirty. He’s being rewarded for being self-centred, and we’re all the enablers.

There’s much bubbling under the surface, if not that far beneath it. Via a spoof, AI-aided interview with the late US journalist Barbara Walters, it’s revealed that Lockwood’s ambition and behaviour have left him without friends. And he’s clearly insecure with a difficult background – which he’s overcome, kind of, by being as hot and exciting as he can be on stage.

Underpinning it all is the fact that Lockwood is a great musician, performing sultry r&b licks and hip-swinging pop numbers that could have been ripped from the charts, each with a choreographed dance routine and often its own costume, including a Britney-inspired PVC body suit and a Wrestling singlet. He might be playing a shipping container, but he’s performing like it’s Murrayfield.

His story is told across three acts, representing Heaven, Hell and Earth, and via a barnstorming playlist that includes Nasty, about his bad-boy image and the self-explanatory Not Like Other Girls. Some of them take dark turns: a song for a nine-year-old is creepy, more subtle than outright bad taste, and a number about loving a merman takes a hard turn from the absurd to the problematic.

Lockwood won the Comedians’ Choice best newcomer award for this debut, and you can see why, as he’s burst onto the scene in a blizzard of confetti and glitter with preternatural musical skills and a talent for big-and-bold character comedy, which offers comedic layers beneath the exhilarating entertainment of the songs.

He’s a superstar in waiting, but from this performance you suspect he knows that already, he’s just waiting for the rest of the world to cotton on. It will.

Review date: 24 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Underbelly George Square