Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Narin Oz’s new show is a tricky one to talk about, as it forcefully rebuffs most types of audience engagement. It’s not funny, but it isn’t really trying to be; it’s playful, but not in a way that you want to be played with; and it doesn’t make much sense on a moment-to-moment basis either as Oz wanders around the room, plays with balloons and goes through violent moodswings, from happy to sad to aggressive and back round again in an endless loop.

Whether it speaks to you in an artistic sense is probably more to the point, as Oz’s approach has more in common with performance art than most modern clowning.

Not enough happens for the show to really be considered chaotic, but she makes periodic allusions to the idea that her rambling style of delivery and erratic focus is representative of the way it feels to be neurodiverse. 

She touches on the stress of masking, and often comes back to her disdain for small talk and the ‘pleasantries’ of the neurotypical. She wants to talk and think about bigger things, but most of the threads she wants to pull on lead to comedic and intellectual dead-ends. 

‘What’s loving yourself?’ she demands of an uncomfortable audience member. When he admits he doesn’t know, she says she doesn’t either. This pattern is repeated throughout the hour as Oz gestures towards topics vaguely without the comedic or emotional language to really explore them.

One thing she definitely does want to talk about is the 2000 Robert Zemeckis/Tom Hanks film Castaway, which she comes back to frequently, even devising her own ‘budget Wilson’ in the form of an inflatable turd emoji that represents her acceptance of the things inside her she doesn’t like. Later, a funeral is held for Wilson and we bounce balloons around.

I think it’s the balloons that’s got some readers (Oz included) describing this experience as beautiful or magical. To me it felt forced and dull, but maybe that’s a sign that I’ve been neglecting my inner child. 

Over on her Instagram, Oz is posting cry-laughing emojis about reviewers who ‘take [her] show at face value' and ‘don’t get what [she’s] going for’.

 I’m accepting of the idea that I might fall into this category of reviewer, but my suspicion is that there’s not nearly as much to this show as she thinks there is, and what is there is being communicated ineffectively. 

The presiding sense is of a show and performer that secretly feels happier pulling away from connection with its audience. And that, to me, is the purpose of neither art nor comedy.

Review date: 12 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Just the Tonic at The Mash House