Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

The top line of Pedro Leandro’s blurb is that he’s ‘a comedian who has famously been described as "magnetic" by the Guardian’.

Setting aside that astonishingly generous use of the adverb ‘famously’ there, it should be pointed out that the praise came for his performance in a 2022 off-West End play. For Leandro is an actor more than a stand-up, as becomes obvious in a debut that’s big on presence, short on jokes.

He can certainly hold a room – that Guardian reviewer was definitely on to something – but he uses that slick charisma to stretch out routines way longer than they need be, monologuing around a single point for several minutes before hitting a mild punchline. Even with such verbosity, the show comes in short, at around 40 minutes.

Leandro gets away with it sometimes – his takedown of Lin-Manuel Miranda works because he’s got a decent point, and the routine is driven by an obvious jealousy that makes him obsess, but even this segment could do with a trim. However, when he spends several minutes theatrically imagining a full life for a man in the front row, you’d be forgiven for glancing at your watch.

Many of the ideas in Soft Animal come, with acknowledgement, from the book The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World.

In it, author Alan Downs suggests that even before they know their sexuality, queer children have a feeling life is going to be more difficult, so develop skills and talents to gain acceptance and recognition before that happens, as if to counteract that feeling of being different. 

Another point is that the first rejection gay men often experience is from their fathers, who find it hard to accept their relationship with their son will not be as they envisaged. All interesting points, but they’re from Downs, not Leandro.

From this springs the themes of seeking approval and validation – who would have thought a comedian and actor would be concerned by that? – and whether external praise will ever be enough.

Along the way, Leandro tells us of his early, straight, sexual experiences – seen as a duty not a pleasure – and how he considers himself a ‘sit-down gay’, happier with a quiet domestic life rather than one of wild nightclubs.

And then there’s his biggest disappointment: thinking he was going to get to record an album and tour Europe, a promise that fizzled into nothing. It’s not exactly the most heart-rending adversity to be covered in comedy.

Despite talking of setback and insecurity, in his performance Leandro has an air of superiority that he neither undermines nor exaggerates enough to be a persona.

This doesn’t detract too much from the overall warmth of the show, but does remind us this is all performance, with no suggestion of the spontaneous heartfelt outpourings that the best comedians achieve, or at least emulate.

Review date: 5 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard