Edinburgh Fringe comic Nick Hornedo on why he made up some of his true story

When I wrote the ending to my solo show, I knew it was bullshit. It should’ve hit all the right notes — tied together character arcs and left the audience with a sincere lesson at the end. But it all felt flat. That’s when a fellow comic encouraged me to embellish a little. 

As someone who got into storytelling comedy to craft shows like Mike Birbiglia’s and Alex Edelman’s, making shit up always felt sacrilegious. Comedy is more meaningful when it’s true, right? A year later, as I prepare for my debut run at the Fringe, I believe embellishments can often make a show more authentic, not less.

If your goal as a comic is to tell stories that resonate with an audience, the resonant piece isn’t the facts, it’s the feelings. In 2023, Hasan Minhaj responded to accusations of embellishing stories in his solo shows, saying that: ‘Every story in my style is built around a seed of truth… the emotional truth is first. The factual truth is secondary.’ 

Emotional truth is the north star of most comedy. Every time I try to turn a real life event into a bit, my first thought is never ‘what happened?’ but rather ‘how did this event make me feel?’ If every joke I made prioritised unnecessary details and facts, I’d get no laughs and my catchphrase would be:  ‘I guess you had to be there.’

Sometimes embellishment is the only way to clearly communicate the emotional truth within real life events. Hasan Minhaj’s The Homecoming King centres on a high school crush who agreed to go to prom with him and then reneged on her doorstep the night of prom. Crushed, Hasan then learns from the girl’s parents that they didn’t want their daughter to take photos with a brown boy. The story is a devastating portrayal of American racism and the limits of immigrant assimilation. But it’s also a little bullshit too. 

According to The New Yorker, the truth is that Hasan asked her to prom, and she said no. And while the comment from the parents was true, it was said on another occasion. So yes, the story in the show is false. And yet, it's truthful in communicating the way Hasan must’ve felt in weeks, months, and years following. Adolescent experiences, especially if they involve racism, cut deep. The wound left behind can’t always be communicated by the events that caused it. It takes artistic license to make the outer world reflect the inner world. 

Concern for fact checking in comedy obfuscates a much bigger issue: Shows that prioritise factual truth over emotional truth are more likely to write in emotional lies. 

One challenges of crafting a solo show is writing an ending that ties the show’s bits and stories together in a meaningful way. It’s become a running joke at the Fringe that every solo show is 45 minutes of jokes followed by five minutes of vulnerability. If there’s a big secret the comic is hiding, this is where they reveal it. My problem isn’t with comics getting poignant at the end.I just don’t believe that many of these comics believe what they’re saying.

I could name numerous examples from solo shows I’ve seen that have this problem. But I would also like to still have friends and a career, so I will bash my own show instead. 

My solo show, which is about a formative high-school breakup, originally ended with me and my ex running into each other years later and having a conversation that, coincidentally, paralleled the first time we met. It was a cute, full circle moment, and 100 per cent true. 

But it didn’t really mean anything. It was my preachy moment at the 45 minute mark. I spoke about it to the audience like it was this big revelation that taught me a valuable lesson, but it wasn’t. The facts were true, but the emotions were false. It wasn’t until I embellished on some other moment from our relationship that I managed to find an ending that felt honest (You should totally check it out by the way).

Prioritising emotional truth over factual truth isn’t just important for comics. It rewards savvier audiences too. Some may worry that condoning fabrication opens the door for stolen valour. When some of the biggest Fringe shows in recent years have centered on traumatic experiences, what’s to stop a fame-desperate comedian from inventing their own Baby Reindeer? 

First, ‘fame-desperate comedian’ is redundant. That’s all of us. 

Second, audiences interested in trauma-gawking might be fooled by the lies an artist tells onstage, sure. But audiences attuned to emotional truths should be able to sniff out something phoney. 

About a year ago, when my show was factually true and emotionally phoney, I took a trip to Boston to see Alex Edelman’s Just For Us, which had a successful Fringe run back in 2018. The show is about the day Alex, a Jewish comic, attended a white supremacist meeting to see what it was like. It was a brilliantly told story full of details that felt true-to-life and emotionally resonant. I had to know how he pulled it off.

After the show, I approached Alex in the lobby, told him I was working on my own show, and asked him how he remembered so many of those details. 

He told me: ‘It’s only about 70 percent true. When you make a show, you should find as much verisimilitude as possible, but from then on just trust the story you write. The real story is gone from my memory now. It’s been replaced by this show I’ve performed 500 times. But the truth is in the telling.’

That was exactly what I needed to hear at the time. After leaving the theatre, I ran to the first coffee shop I could find and wrote the new draft of my show.

Or maybe it was a week later? I don’t know. That’s just the way I remember it. 

• Nick Hornedo: Watch This When You Get Home will be at Underbelly Bristo Square Clover at 2.25pm.

Published: 21 Jul 2025