Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Every year growing slightly larger and more powerful in a physical as well as a comedic sense, Pierre Novellie has finally reached a tipping point where he’s out of the velvet jacket and into a suit he bought on a website that sells clothing for bouncers. He’s also very responsibly brought ice and water to his sweltering basement venue and tells us: ‘If there were a landslide and we were trapped here, I would be your leader.’

It’s hard to argue that point with someone so physically imposing who also wears his intelligence on his sleeve, even when many of the stories he tells in this show paint him in a farcical light, particularly the bravura closing anecdote in which he struggles to pack and move house in a single day, ploughing through a nightmarish journey on the London Underground with 15kg of defrosting South African beef dangling around his neck.

Interestingly, after several shows and an excellent book in which he examined his late stage autism diagnosis, the topic doesn’t merit even a single mention in this new set. 

Here, he doesn’t really have a theme – not that he needs one – but he does touch on the idea that observational comedy is becoming more difficult in a world with no common cultural experience. 

He also notes the fact that money seems to be draining out of the UK to no particular destination, leaving the country feeling run down and depressed. That’s an important bellwether for me. As boys who immigrated to the UK from South Africa and Malaysia respectively, Novellie and Phil Wang were always bullish on the relative luxury and resilience of the UK. If he’s starting to worry, that makes me worry too.

Novellie also has some excellent material on his gradual slide into becoming a reactionary dad. This is the comedian in his wheelhouse and element, using his cuttingly precise and ornate language to marvel at people who wear nude shapewear to the airport. ‘Winnie the Pooh was also exiled from Paradise and now knoweth his own nakedness.’ What do the people at Luton Airport not get about that?

When writing about Novellie I’m often reminded of something he once said about reviews, to the effect of ‘it’s almost impossible to get more than four stars as a straight stand-up.’ And it’s true, it is inherently much more difficult to achieve a feeling of transcendence with straightforward observational material, no matter how good it is.

 In that realm though, Novellie is the best there is at what he does, a comic of unrivalled quality and consistency.

Review date: 18 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy Club