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Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose – Coorie
A pleasant debut hour but it is currently lacking in punch. Summary
Rating
Good
TikTok are staking their ground at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. They’re the festival’s official sponsors and their content creators are everywhere. The pandemic created the perfect conditions for comedians to pivot to online material, and now we’re back in the real world, the TikTok natives are making their way onto the stage. On the TikTok stardom periphery, comedian Patrick Spicer brings his debut show Who’s this all of a sudden? to the Gilded Balloon.
It’s a steady start for Spicer with an introspective hour on mental health and childhood embarrassments. However, there are no big surprises, following a path that so many debut shows have before him. He does manage to be inventive when treading a small patch of his own ground with a funny routine on the levels of virginity, as well as losing his own.
He’s cheeky and charming and has a pleasant, chilled style and well does he know it. He opens with a strong “do you like me?” directed squarely to the audience and yeah, we do. We love his confidence on stage, although as he tells us, there’s a lot of insecurity behind it. He sees the show as literally an opportunity to build his “cool, strong, brave and cheeky” brand. It’s clear what sort of a comedian he is. Spicer is an engaging storyteller and questioner of the world, like a north London Jerry Seinfeld via early Russell Howard.
To watch him, you wouldn’t know that Spicer is big on TikTok, he’s a natural comedian of a well-established type. This is a well-timed debut; he has already picked up a few award nominations to stick on his posters. This is a sold grounding for a first show and hopefully will act as an audience builder for a more focussed return to the festival next year. I am sure that he’ll be back year on year and TV producers will already be calling.
Written by: Patrick Spicer
Produced by: Katie Story Productions
Patrick Spicer: Who’s This All Of A Sudden? plays at EdFringe 2022 until 28 August. Further information and bookings here.
