Writer: Michael Porter
Michael Porter died three times in one day. And unlike many comedians at Edinburgh, he is not talking about a set that didn’t land well when he says this. His deaths were literal not metaphorical and followed a childhood accident where he was hit by a passing vehicle and then dragged up the road by it with his head stuck underneath a mud flap.
As sources of inspiration for an hour of stand-up go, it’s fair to say that Porter’s is likely to be one of the most unique at the Fringe this year. His set doesn’t dwell exclusively on the accident and the deaths, but the frontal lobe damage that it led to is ever present in his life and comes over in his stories and anecdotes and his general style of delivery.
Noting that there is a defective predictive text function lurking somewhere between the things he thinks and the words that come out of his mouth, he switches between smart, quick, observations about growing up in parts of Ireland that don’t make it on to films, to longer sections that cover taxi drivers in Glasgow, the differences between Glasgow and Edinburgh, and end on an extended piece about names and dialect without the feeling that there isn’t necessarily a common connection running through most of the topics.
Of course, the common connection is the way he experiences the world, the problems the brain damage (as he refers to it) causes him, and how he works round it in his life. There is a fair amount of personal material in as he talks about his daughter and relationships that have either gone badly or very badly but Porter generally stays on the side of observational comedy, common experiences and how he deals with them, rather than going too much into any darker material that may also spring out of his experiences.
With a natural conversational style that makes audiences feel he could be chatting just to you, Porter’s set is worth making a trip out beyond Pleasance Courtyard and on to the slightly hidden Just the Tonic Nucleus venue up the road from it.
Runs until 25 August (not 12th) | Image: Contributed
