Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Pierre Novellie recognises he’s too cerebral and sardonic a comedian to be opening with the enthusiastic holler: ‘It’s Saturday night! Who’s ready for some comedy?’

‘It’s the jacket that makes me say these things,’ he says drily. The jacket in question is a plum velvet number that causes him to sweat profusely but only enhances the air of mighty leonine authority that he brings to the stage with his huge frame and piercing blue eyes. He goes on to absolutely kill the Monkey Barrel for the next hour.

He's sick of explaining his complicated heritage, but we still get a quick lecture on the exile and migration of the Huguenots, which does feel like a bit of a concession. If there was justice in this world, a Fringe crowd should know Novellie’s deal by now.

A recent addition to the backstory is his autism diagnosis, which formed the twist at the end of his previous show. Novellie was diagnosed by a heckler in Bristol, and is now scared to return to that city in case the same audience member turns up again and he comes back with anaemia.

Autism takes the role of texture rather than topic in this show, with Novellie saying he’s ‘bored of labels,’ although he’s still just as in love with regional and national stereotypes as he’s always been. These stereotypes have always been a part of his act, and although you’d sometimes wish him to move beyond these easy targets there’s no denying that he barnstorms the material, especially in an extended sequence that contrasts British and European drinking culture, painting a grim but very funny picture of every single British town on a Friday night with ‘vomit splattering up the flank of a war memorial’.

The observations are equally precise in a section on his local Iranian barbershop, which is one of the most masterful displays of pure stand-up I’ve seen this year. His outsider’s eye is only getting more refined as the years go by.

Having recognised an autism-coded propensity in himself to fall in and out of love with things at the drop of a hat, he occasionally worries that one day he’ll lose interest in stand-up mid-routine. It would be a terrible shame if so, he’s one of the best we’ve got.

Review date: 16 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy Club