Brighton Fringe comedy review

It’s billed as a work in progress for Edinburgh – albeit one Chortle was  invited to – so I’ll avoid too detailed an analysis of why this Brighton Fringe version falls well short on almost every metric.

James Arthur Is Not A Mathematician And Other Lies is a collection of anecdotes about famous-in-their-field mathematicians, though told with little understanding of  the clarity, pace and basic beats of storytelling. 

Nothing’s quite set up properly, there’s little ebb and flow, and Arthur spends an age on reenactments of points already made, with no flair. It’s rich that Arthur accuses Andrew Wiles, the man who finally proved Fermat’s Last Theorem, of filibustering in the lecture outlining his work, given that Arthur spends such an age circuitously getting us to this point, with endless near-identical PowerPoint slides. Arthur is a slave to the screen, when not everything need be up there.

There’s a fine tradition of nerdy comedy, but Arthur - a geekily likeable presenter, even if they often make things way more awkward than they need be - doesn’t have the clarity of what makes an anecdote interesting, and rarely lets good facts speak for themselves, bogging tales down with confusing gimmickry.

Arthur was apparently discombobulated by a few people leaving the show about 20 minutes in (though they did so with minimal fuss) but the problems with a show far less entertaining and informative than the average Hannah Fry TikTok, the problems run deeper than this. 

James Arthur Is Not A Mathematician And Other Lies does not equate to very much as it stands. Arthur has their work cut out knocking this into serviceable shape by August, particularly as a version of this show already had a  short run at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

From what can be elicited from the into, Arthur went into mathematics after getting disillusioned with acting. It may have been a wise choice.

Review date: 26 May 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Brighton Caroline of Brunswick