In a culture that’s joyfully embracing the ‘unhinged’, there’s no shortage at this year’s Fringe of radically open comedies featuring performers seeming to be right on the brink.
Of them, Kate Dehnert’s Echo might just be the most convincingly visceral. It’s an hour-long howl, throwing emotion at the audience with the alacrity of a Gaspar Noé movie or a Fiona Apple record.
Echo is a break-up show, telling the story of the nuclear blast and ensuing fallout of a ten-year relationship that ended in 2024, at this very festival. Throughout, the tale is told through roiling, propulsive stand-up and songs to an electronic beat. At first, what’s evoked is the salacious thrill of the messiest smoking-area gossip session of your life – but then, with no let-up or adjustment in tone, the show takes a darker turn into a startlingly frank description of deep depression and suicidality.
Despite Dehnert’s extensive scaffolding to assure the audience both that she’s fine and that it’s fine to laugh, following her through the void isn’t always easy – it’s often deeply uncomfortable. Some set pieces are hard to follow, others seem played for laughs but can’t quite get there, and some may find the whole thing simply too much to bear. Others will find here a performance so primeval that it doesn’t matter.
Kate Dehnert: Echo, Pleasance Courtyard, until 30 Aug (not 24), 7.05pm