Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Theo Mason Wood calls his show ‘genre-defying’. A less generous observer – OK, me – would call it a mess, with the Berlin-based comedian throwing all manner of styles at the wall, but finding few that stick.

First of all, he uses the clowning trope of emerging slowly from the wings, keeping the audience guessing what his strange mime is all about, until all becomes clear. 

Even if derivative, that’s a decent enough starting point, but then he launches into so-called ‘poems’ revolving around wanking, paedophiles and incest, like a bad open mic night from a decade ago. 

When he later talks about the adult circumcision he underwent to address a tight foreskin, again it’s just an ‘I’ve got a massive knob’ joke, which he doesn’t have enough charm to make properly ironic. In fact, there’s a certain offputting smugness to his delivery. 

If there is a recurring style, it’s to perform a dumb idea with faux pretension, and very slowly, as if it were serious, high art – but all it does is test the audience’s patience. And dress it up all you like, but a lot of his jokes are puerile.

The first of such is a story set in a bureau de change – a phrase which required a note of explanation for some punters – with the gradual build-up raising expectations the weak wordplay payoff cannot satisfy.

Similarly he spins an old joke about a morsel of gone-off food being the one thing that makes you ill after a heavy night on the booze into a long, shaggy-dog epic. Very few got on board with this, making it feel interminable, though his ability to make his stomach undulate in waves is an enjoyably daft party trick.

It’s something of a slog to get through the self-pitying ‘woe is me’ narrative of being dumped and possible redemption, especially as your sympathies will almost certainly lie with the ex. And an extended physical routine about wooing an imaginary girlfriend is – you guessed it – too long-winded

What’s most frustrating is that there are actually flashes of brilliance in the hour. Some of the one-liners are really quite sharp, his boast of how he defies conventions is silly and inventive, and some of the audience interactions are enjoyably playful. 

Perhaps Mason Wood – who performs in a cheap grey suit so shiny you could roast a turkey in it –  needs to get over his desire to be ‘genre-defying’ and pick just one to be funny in.

Review date: 6 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Underbelly Bristo Square