Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Portrait Of A Tom As A Young Neenan is a humble but charming story of how others might not see us as we see ourselves.

That’s illustrated by a modestly absurd sketch up top in which the mild-mannered comedian struggles to have his passport photograph taken, the camera never quite able to capture him as he’d like.

It sets up the hour’s theme, revolving around Neenan being commissioned to paint a portrait of an 86-year-old man who had very peculiar demands as to how he should be immortalised, unrelated to the literal truth of his life.

Neenan, who has a string of writing credits to his name including Radio 4’s The Hauntening, is hyper-aware of the tricks of storytelling, and is often asking probing questions about what liberties can be taken when forming a narrative, whether for one tale or for a whole life.

He’s a modest performer, describing his thoughtful, considered, literate approach to comedy as ‘not raw and unfiltered but well-cooked and sediment-free ’. The script has its share of pithy bon mots – including a five-word story to rival (and undercut) Ernest Hemingway’s briefest – and plenty of sardonic faux self-aggrandisement.

He’s erudite, too, with the hour peppered with references to Gaudi, Chekhov and a whole routine about Goya’s masterpiece Saturn Devouring His Son.

Though self-effacing now, Neenan wasn’t always as chill, and by way of background describes performing Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch at school with the most inexplicable of accents, and shooting an 88-minute film at the age of 18, convinced it would make Hollywood sit up and take notice. 

Getting the right level of confidence has apparently long eluded him – that early cockiness becoming anxiety in later life. At a low he called the Samaritans, only to find the most unsympathetic ear on the other end, as cringily described in the best routine of the hour. 

Otherwise, the story of the portrait is deftly told, but slightly underpowered in both performance and content, with the agreeable comic preferring to be ponderous about the nature of art and legacy rather than offering too many surprises, dramatic moments, or gut-punch laughs. Though maybe his self-image is different from how I perceive him…

Review date: 9 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Underbelly George Square