This Review is from August 2024
Will Owen is obsessed with pop culture on television. Strictly Come Dancing, The X Factor and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. Perhaps this fandom reached its peak as he attended a taping of Loose Women. It’s an ITV show (which I’ve never seen) which apparently features celebrity women on a panel debating situations like ‘day dating’ and ‘men’s rights’.
As he’s telling the story, I surprise myself by actually starting to care.
The magic of the show is that it works so well with people like me who, on the surface, can’t relate. I imagine the comedian expected a room full of young gay punters who identify with the camp theatrics of trash TV. “Where’s my gays at?” he goes, “I’ve heard Edinburgh is full of them.”
Funny is funny, however. Will is hilarious, authentic and in control. He’s brilliant with a crowd, as he gives us what we didn’t know what wanted.
“This was not my world,” said the man sitting next to me as the show concluded. An older gay man, he’d been coming to the Fringe for over three decades and watched many gay acts tell similar ‘coming out’ stories. “This feels different. And all the better for it.”
We’d both been laughing for an hour, along with everyone else.
Martin Walker
Podcast interview with Will Owen
Image by Rebecca Need-Menear
Tickets HERE
Reviews of Vlad Ilich: Vladislav, Baby Don’t Hurt Me collated by the British Comedy Guide HERE
Will’s Profile HERE
