Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Mike Wozniak proves himself a poet of the parochial in this charming story of the goings-on in his particular corner of South-East Essex.

The neighbourhood has been scandalised by an apparent arson attack which reduced a memorial bench to ashes. Who could have done such a heinous thing? That is what the ‘citizen-led inquiry’ assembled by the neighbourhood committee, entirely unauthorised by higher authority, intends to find out.

The fusty, mild-mannered comedian leads us through all the suspects - as well as all those who are far too upstanding a member of the community to possibly fall under the finger of suspicion. 

In doing so, he creates a delightful and thoroughly accurate portrait of genteel, middle-class suburban attitudes. Locals are assumed to be universally known, their minor achievements heralded with pride. Becoming treasurer of the neighbourhood committee is afforded the same status as becoming governor of the Bank of England. 

It feels as if we’ve been allowed a peek into the local Facebook group. Or, more specifically, as if we’re paying a visit to parents back in the place we grew up, only to be filled in with every minor detail of the life of someone you were fleetingly introduced to when you were 12.

Every character has a delightfully whimsical backstory: a bloke killed by a penguin, the unusual re-enactments Wozniak himself indulges in,  the committee chairman, who ‘controls the media’, since he also edits the monthly newsletter.

The pool of potential suspects becomes dizzyingly large, as mention of one person triggers thoughts about three more as the discursive Wozniak tries to be comprehensive. That becomes something of an issue when he asks the audience to join him in the amateur sleuthing.

This is where The Bench takes a novel approach compared to your traditional stand-up show. Wozniak asks the audience to guide the investigation – either by selecting from a shortlist of evidence we'd like to hear more about, opening up ‘choose-your-own-adventure’-style branches of the possible narrative, or by contributing any theories or asking any questions we like. Like an open-world video game, where you're free to explore away from the main mission, these diversions put Wozniak’s improv skills to the test, and he doesn’t come up wanting.

However, the investigation didn't quite fizz tonight. The audience in the Assembly Hall - not the most intimate of environments to foster connections  - were reluctant to contribute, save for one woman in the balcony who was particularly keen to talk about her South Wales roots, however irrelevant.

Proceedings also felt quite rushed, with too little opportunity to really go deep into rabbit holes of the detailed world Wozniak created. On tour, he has the entire second half to devote to the audience's lines of inquiry, but here it was compressed into 15 minutes or so.

Nonetheless, the comic managed to engineer a neat solution to give his story closure – even if it may have been more intriguing to see more twists and turns, exploring how the mechanics of this uniquely nonlinear approach to storytelling played out. 

Review date: 14 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Assembly Hall