Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

I had hoped that the story of being one of the very few outsiders to cross North Korea’s tightly controlled borders might have been more interesting than this. But Dan Kelly concentrates more on his training and his performance in the 2018 Pyongyang Amateur Marathon than he does on offering insight into his visit to the most secretive dictatorship on the planet. 

He rightly wants to boast of his achievement so much that he puts the spoiler of how it worked out right there in the title – so much for building suspense! But concentrating so much on the race comes at the expense of what non-runners want to hear about.

Kelly sets up the story by introducing us to the other four lads who came with him on the race, but only superficially – giving them traits like ‘bad dress sense’ to gently mock over the hour.

It’s 20 minutes before we get sight of North Korea in the story when he fills out the visa forms. There’s a bit of an amusing to-do as their train crosses the border from China, and the hotel’s nice but a bit creepy. It’s an interesting nugget that if you photograph a landmark or statue there you cannot crop any part of it out, for fear of spoiling its beauty. But that – and his suspicion that the cheering crowds were told exactly what to say – is pretty much the only insight into life under a rigidly authoritarian regime.

But he does share info about what trainers he wore, what medicine to take before the race, what energy gels keep him going and details his feelings at various mileposts along the course as he found himself among the frontrunners.

For someone who’s not a full-time comedian – his job is flying around the world checking supermarket prices to compile cost-of-living indices – Kelly holds the room well and maintains a few decent running gags, in both senses of the word. The story’s OK, but not a patch on what it promised.

Perhaps it’s because he’s so used to travelling to out-of-the-way places, but his great adventure has not translated into a great show.

• Dan Kelly: How I Came Third in the North Korean Marathon is on at Just The Tonic at The Caves at 4.10pm.

Review date: 17 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Just The Tonic at The Caves