Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Here’s one for those who don’t like their metaphors too complex. Brendan Scannell is taking a trip in a submersible vessel and the deeper it gets, well the deeper his monologue gets – until we are in the darkness of the titular abyss, under great pressure.

Despite the ever-mounting trauma dump, we feel in safe hands thanks to the comedian’s gregarious camp energy. He maintains a sense of humour as the subject matter becomes more raw, without ever trivialising the pain.

The submersible is supposedly some sort of Californian oxygen therapy. Quite how that works is a moot point but it lets Scannell start with some arch stand-up about such woo-woo as well as some to-and-fro business with the unseen therapist, rapping him for his mischievous misbehaviour in not taking the dive too seriously.

Then we are paddling in the shallow waters of generational troubles, from his all-Irish great-grandparents who passed down his vivid red hair to his overachieving, tough-love parents – the marathon-running English professor and the dad insisting Scannell learn to be self-sufficient. Broken heart? Take a bath for that…

From the moment Scannell first emerged in a helmet, it appears the show is going to be gimmicky – and sometimes it is, frankly – but it soon hits the beats of a tragicomic one-man show more than it does an hour seeking to maximise laughs. But the comic sees a joke as a way to connect people to a ‘common understanding by a well-articulated truth’, and that’s what he wants to achieve. 

We plunge into talk of his meds killing his sex drive, rehab and, the crux of the show, a brother in psychosis, a condition that becomes increasingly worrying for all concerned.

Scannell – Emmy nominated for his role in the dark Netflix comedy Bonding – does his best to leaven the seriousness with his jaunty Pollyanna energy and amusing side anecdotes such as the time he worked as a personal assistant to a Hollywood superstar and ruined their multi-million dollar apartment, or got into a car crash with John Travolta’s stand-in. The act-out of a conversation he imagines with his younger self also puts some wit into his reflective moments.

But grim circumstances stretch his usually unfailing optimism and endeavours to maintain his comic antennae – even though attempts at flippancy are exposed, by design, for being inadequate to cope with the distress of reality. For we are never far from a sad update about his brother’s mental state, or a grim reminder of how cruel America’s healthcare system is. There is no clean, happy ending for this desperate situation – but we feel some sense of hope and, more crucially, connection with the comedian and his troubled family.

The Abyss is one of many shows this Fringe – more than ever, it seems – that straddles comedy and theatre. It possibly belongs more safely in the latter camp, but Scannell never abandons his eye for the absurd, even in the bleakest of life’s turns. 

Review date: 28 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Patter House