Review by Lucy Holz
Famous for his internationally acclaimed TV shows Please Like Me and Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, Josh Thomas is a comedy household name. This is his first time at Edinburgh Fringe but his show Let’s Tidy Up has already toured extensively around the US and Australia.
Written in collaboration with playwright Lally Katz, this performance is closer to a one-man show than standup, with a complete set design consisting of a rug, chair, table and a potted plant. With poems, a dance break and precisely written ‘dramatic moments’, it’s a diverse 70-minute monologue that keeps the audience on their toes.
Thomas begins the show telling us about his ADHD. It’s important that you know he was diagnosed 9 years ago, before it was trendy and everyone was talking about it in their comedy specials. Fortunately his autism still gives him an edge on all these other, newly-diagnosed comics at this year’s fringe.
His style is conversational and endearingly awkward. Even though he tells us he wouldn’t even know if one of us died, it does feel like we’re all his friends hanging out at a particularly humid twink party. By acknowledging his many flaws and how they definitely make him ‘a bit shit’, Thomas effectively humanises himself and makes it easy to empathise with him and the many faux pas he commits.
The show is tightly written by Thomas and Katz, with seemingly off-the-cuff asides making the audience feel like he’s altered the show just for us. Despite an attempt at crowd work being shut down by a reluctant audience member, Thomas doesn’t let this faze him and seamlessly continues the show without any signs of being thrown off.
Ultimately this is a show for people who like Josh Thomas. While the crowd cheers and whoops for his unenthusiastic dance break, those who haven’t watched him for years on a TV screen may be more confused than amused. It is admittedly thrilling to see the person who created such a groundbreaking series for young queer people in the flesh, and he could have spent the entire time awkwardly krumping and most of us probably wouldn’t have minded.
Fortunately he doesn’t, and this show is sleek, funny and surprising. Thomas is so refreshingly self-aware that even when he’s admitting his worst moments to us, it’s impossible not to find them funny.
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