Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

This story starts at Russell Howard’s stag do, but if you’re expecting to get any scuttlebutt on the 2019 Las Vegas shindig, you’ll be disappointed.  Joe Maggio adheres to the code of what happens on the stag, stays on the stag – except for an injury he sustained while playing football there, the triggering incident for what was to become The Brush of this show’s title – a brush with death.

Maggio, normally a maker of indie films, got to know Howard when he was called in as a last-minute replacement to be the sound guy on the comedian’s American travelogue, and they hit if off. 

Hence he came to be at the bachelor party a couple of years later, despite being a good 15 years older than most of the other revellers. There he discovers that the British like to drink, and that the break was not to be the relaxing getaway he was expecting. 

There are no jokes here beyond sardonic observation on the alcohol consumption, while his discretion means the tea remains unspilled. Pride made him play on through his injury on the football field, and the problem was exacerbated on his return to work, dashing around a concert venue shooting documentary footage.

If you didn’t know the premise, you might wonder where all this is going. While Maggio has a decent delivery, this feels much more like a recollection of events than an anecdote, and there is a big difference.

Things get more interesting when he is forced to confront his own mortality, and the ‘existential epiphany’ as to what his life was worth. As an atheist, he nonetheless considers a last-minute Pascal’s Wager conversion, because what has he got to lose? And the necessary but bleak discussion with his wife about whether to turn off life support yields a morbidly wry, but quite touching scene.

This section’s pretty interesting given Maggio’s extreme experience – though it would be a huge overreach to claim this was comedy. It needs more than being Howard’s mate to acquire his stand-up skills. 

And of course we know the outcome, given the narrator stands in front of us, sharing thoughtful musings on the meaning of death, after a long set-up to get us here.

Review date: 19 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Just the Tonic at The Mash House