From the minute Gianmarco Soresi takes the stage, it’s clear the room is in safe hands. It may be his first time bringing a show to the Edinburgh Fringe, but having toured all over the world and garnered a global audience online, his wealth of experience shows. Fresh off a red eye flight, Soresi shows no sign of jet lag as he makes an hour of acerbic, self-deprecating and satirical jokes look completely effortless.
And yet the work that Soresi has put into calibrating his material for this specific audience is evident. Despite a deceptively flailing stage manner, his delivery is exacting. Soresi easily switches out common American words for their UK equivalents which, while it may come off sycophantic to shower praise for such minor details, is not easy to do naturally and allows the routines to land with maximum impact.
Drawing on his dual Jewish-Italian heritage, Soresi’s deftness at crafting perfect two-sentence jokes proves itself more effective the closer to the line of acceptability he treads. An aside about his Instagram followers, for example, transubstantiates into a genocide denialism metaphor that is so undeniably clever as to relieve the initial tension.
Soresi jokes that one of his bits will get him ‘cancelled’ one day. But if that were to be the case, it would likely be because of bad faith engagement with his material which is not meant to be taken at face value. He is almost always the butt of his own jokes, painting himself as the misguided holder of whichever troubling political views he is satirising.
It is precisely Soresi’s disarming demeanour and clear-headed consideration towards his choice topics that creates space for laughter from the rawest of subjects. Tech accelerationism at the hands of a couple of Silicon Valley megalomaniacs, for example, has recently proved a little too real – and too well-trodden – to be a surefire target for comics. And yet, Soresi finds a gently devastating goldmine in a simple Mark Zuckerberg impression that would feel mean if it wasn’t so damn cathartic.
It would be cruel if it wasn’t punching up, but Soresi’s quietly intellectual brand of comedy bullies the bullies via his own everyday anxieties. In dark times, it soothes without sanctimony. Soresi may fool you into thinking he’s just rolled into town with a breezy and superficially provocative hour, but this is brilliantly written, expertly delivered standup.
Gianmarco Soresi: The Drama King Tour, Monkey Barrel Comedy, until 24 Aug, 2.50pm (extra dates added: Underbelly Bristo Square, 22-23 Aug, 10pm; Underbelly Bristo Square, 23 Aug, 5.30pm)