Fringe comedy reviews: Kate Dehnert: Echo | Lara Ricote: INKLING | Jennifer Jane: Happy Tea | Hannah Platt: Cult Classic | Abbie Edwards: Knee Touch | Nate Kitch

Kate Dehnert | Credit: Emma Holland | Credit: Emma Holland.

COMEDY

Kate Dehnert: Echo ★★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 30 August

One of several hours at this festival in which a comic lays bare their abusive mistreatment by a former partner and fellow performer, Kate Dehnert's Echo is a howl of raw, righteous indignation set to a heart-pumping, defiant, rave backing. More than a break-up show the Australian maintains, this is how her ex broke her down into pieces and left her in disarray after blowing up their life together, how it took her to the edge but she clawed her sanity and self-belief back. It was during the 2024 Fringe that her partner of a decade dropped the bombshell that he was in a relationship with another, younger comic. He and Dehnert had moved to London two years prior, she had BBC writing work and had contorted her life around his needs and desires. Beyond the blindsiding, which essentially destroyed her financial security, derailed her career and cost her the metropolitan lifestyle she'd been enjoying in the English capital, the bleakest irony was that her cheating boyfriend masqueraded as one of comedy's good guys, policing the male toxicity of nights he ran, while clandestine exhibiting the behaviour he publicly condemned.

Dehnert is scrupulously careful not to expose the identity of this shabby “white knight”, an unfeelingly insensitive bastard whom she and her friends nickname “Fatberg” and whose every interaction with her post-split causes her further pain. Yet that's the only quarter she affords him. By turns snarling and slinky, heartful and calculating, spitting the sweet, poisonous drip of her witty lyrics out, Dehnert lights up her shipping container venue as she blazes through her woozy tunes of rage, contempt but also routine silliness. Echo resounds, going to some dark places, but leaving you in no doubt as to whose reputation is still standing and dancing at the end. Jay Richardson

COMEDY

Lara Ricote: INKLING ★★★★

Monkey Barrel Comedy (Monkey Barrel 3) (Venue 515) until 30 August

Though technically a break-up show, Lara Ricote's latest hour is infinitely more than that. The impish Mexican-American-Venezualan comic suggests that at times you'll only understand 65% of it, which in specific moments, can feel absurdly generous, especially if intellectual comprehension rather than visceral absorption is your aim. But vague, gut feelings are also kind of the point, as the show advocates for the magic and mystery of what we don't fully comprehend, while hinging on a chance encounter that the hard of hearing comic had in a London museum.

Putting herself back together after the extended, drawn-out demise of her long-term relationship in Amsterdam, the curious, ignorance-embracing Ricote was viewing a painting when a stranger mistook her repeated inability to understand his soft, British accent as stereotypical American stupidity about what he was saying, an interaction that left her stung. Meanwhile, she'd also found herself connecting with a similarly hard of hearing comic in New York. He's exploring sign language but she's never felt herself missing out or particularly disabled, enjoying plugging any gaps with her imagination.

And what a live-wire imagination she has. Because plot-wise, that's about the sum of INKLING. Yet it doesn't come close to describing the clown-y exertions that this pocket powerhouse goes to in order to forge connections with her audience and humanity in general. From her baffling first appearance as a crone-like mythical figure, through her barked spouting of philosophical platitudes and demanding cries for blackouts, to the demented act outs in which she dramatises her inner state of mind and her dumbly inspired gulping of drinking water, it's a head-scratcher in every sense. Elliptical, metaphysical and bonkers above all else, but hugely compelling. Smug, condescending atheism certainly seems a poor argument by comparison. I really didn't want it to end. Jay Richardson

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COMEDY

Jennifer Jane: Happy Tea ★★★

Just The Tonic at The Mash House (Venue 288) until 30 August

Jennifer Jane's is an unlikely, unprecedented tale that's already spawned its own Amazon Prime documentary, Charged: The Eduardo Garcia Story, about her TV chef boyfriend who went hiking in the Montana mountains and passed 2400 volts when he touched an electrocuted bear. But with Happy Tea, what the British-American comedian and filmmaker fills in between the jeopardy of his survival is her paranoia about their relationship, her questions about his fidelity and the strength of their bond.

This could be a worthy account of love, forgiveness and reconciliation against terrible odds. But the stubborn, mischievous Jane isn't letting anyone off that easily. Offering a blow-by-blow, intimate portrait of an intense, head-scrambling period of her life, the gifted storyteller is wryly perspicacious and self-mocking in hindsight. But while she was remarkably selfless and reluctant to entertain the notion of karma at the time, you'll be tickled by the delicious ironies and subtext of an artist getting belated payback, reclaiming elements of their own narrative that were taken from them. Beyond the absurd “Electric Bear!” headline, there are pruriently compelling details of lust, body horror and even cannibalism, but it's ultimately more touching than shocking. Jay Richardson

COMEDY

Hannah Platt: Cult Classic ★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 30 August

Hannah Platt wonders whether she has the charisma to start a cult (“another male-dominated industry”) and the answer is an emphatic yes. After all, Charles Manson managed it, and he was only 5’2”.

In her 2024 debut, Defence Mechanism, this compelling young stand-up spoke about body dysmorphia, mental health problems, self-esteem and coming out as queer. Many of these themes are touched upon here, such as having been in therapy for most of her life, unsettling doctors’ observations about her adolescent unhappiness and her brief flirtation with Scientology.

Platt might initially come across as a delicate waif, but this woman has a backbone of steel; in her head she’s Joe Pesci in some of his more gritty roles and she couldn’t hold the room’s attention more robustly if she had a loaded gun in her hand.

She’s clearly worked hard to understand, protect and improve herself, and it’s clear that some of the characteristics that might have once made her feel like “other” now contribute to her unique appeal. It might be hard to chat to people one-to-one, but with Platt’s understated wit, smarts – all delivered with a toe in the darkness - she makes entertaining a crowd look like a doddle. Ashley Davies

COMEDY

Abbie Edwards: Knee Touch ★★★

Just The Tonic at The Mash House (Venue 288) until 16 August

The course of true love never did run smooth. But wow, in the course of this sweet debut from Abbie Edwards, does she contrive every act of self-sabotage to prevent it from happening. If will they won't tales about frustrated student longing isn't to your taste, then approach Knee Touch with caution. To say Edwards fixated on one of her friends, even after she'd set him up with another friend, doesn't do justice to the focused agonies she went through while at Southampton University.

Even now, as a teacher, Edwards still projects the youthful pique of a teenager recalling their doomed crush. And this show is equal parts amusing and frustrating. Several times the pair almost got together but were thwarted by fate. And ultimately when they did, Edwards' overthinking of the relationship repeatedly threatened to scupper it. With a petulant delivery, her irritation is with herself more than anyone else. And there's a suggestion she may have been developing serious mental health issues, though this is never really explored in depth. Edwards knows the strengths of her stroppy stage persona and writes to showcase it, thankfully wrapping everything up with a happy ending. Jay Richardson

COMEDY

Nate Kitch ★★★

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose (Venue 24) until 31 August

Nate has a suitably opaque entry in the Fringe Brochure, so do not let it either entice or repel you. I can see in my notes I have written “something inexplicable with beer mats” as my opening impression. You will see what I mean.

The entire show is a tricky one to sum up. Nate's life is, he tells us, going badly, having gone through divorce, the death of his dog, and having his comedy described as “like jazz” last year. This year he gets risky with an arguably over extended section in which he talks to an invisible dog, an impassioned but unpersuasive tirade about oyster shucking (almost saved by some pointed political material about women fishing), and a worrying dream sequence featuring Gordon Ramsay in an undoubtedly actionable masturbatory scenario. On the upside we get a tremendous recipe for Ragu and a much needed caveat regarding vinaigrette on oysters. There is absolutely no point in trying to see this show as a whole. It is not even the sum of its parts. But its parts are really quite something. And, as Nate discovers at the end, maybe it is jazz after all. Kate Copstick

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