Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh
The polarising comic overthinks relationships and family ties before leading his Audience into territory where he’s not after laughs
Drew Michael’s first televised set was called “the most polarising comedy special of the year” and its follow-up likewise divided audiences. The impression of less of a crowd-pleaser than a crowd-provoker is confirmed by his fringe debut, an inventive and intimate set that Michael interrupts with staged phone-calls from the audience, protesting against the show’s self-indulgence and lack of easy hooks. I wouldn’t go that far, but the 37-year-old is stronger on structure and invention than on jokes, which absent themselves entirely as the show narrows to its heartfelt conclusion.
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It is not clear that’s where we are heading when the sometime Saturday Night Live writer kicks off, with an act-out fretting about whether last night’s date will respond to his texts. It establishes him as an intense overthinker, his vulnerabilities uncomfortably close to the surface. We then flash back to a slanging match between Michael’s parents, who then break out of their frame and begin commentating on his show. These same parents are implicated in Michael’s failure to address his hearing loss as a child, which has since severely deteriorated, as an upstage graph dolefully depicts.
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