Larry Dean entertains audiences at Monkey Barrel Comedy in this Year’s Edinburgh Fringe with a work in progress show. Having watched quite a bit of his stuff online, I was very excited to finally see Dean in the flesh in front of an eager Fringe crowd.
Dean starts with some humble, polite audience interaction with his front row, making it clear that he is not there to intimidate, but rather welcome his audience to join him for the next 50 minutes. Dean uses his audience well and includes call backs to this first 3 minute audience interaction throughout his set.
Dean’s commentary on everyday that stuff we can all relate to is excellent; mainly his discussion of exes or people who used to be in our lives that aren’t anymore. He intersperses this with talk of his current partner. Dean finds feelings and insecurities about exes that we all experience, whether it be regret or wandering if they moved onto someone else because we weren’t good enough. And how we all have at least one bad ex. Here is where he utilises a hilariously clever metaphor for a bad ex in the form of a haunted mansion. This in itself being a brilliantly smart way of referring to an ex/toxic person while also providing many a double entendre. The whole haunted mansion section has the audience in stitches and the many other metaphors branching off from this one joke are expertly crafted.
Later into the set Dean lowers his guard and opens up about his elderly Granny, who currently suffers from Dementia. However, Dean never treats this like a negative or wallows in the sadness, rather he looks for the humanity behind it and uses the moments that are genuinely funny. Like his Nanny forgetting Catholic views on homosexuality, asking him if he wants tea every ten seconds and even her believing she is located wherever the TV is showing. This intricate and very sweet observational segment is relatable to those who have loved ones experiencing the same challenging disease, while also being surprisingly funny and finding the positives in a largely unfortunate situation.
The whole set has a sense of intimacy and openness. The discussion of exes opens up the door for a few comments of Dean’s current relationship that he is clearly very happy in, giving the audience some lovely snippets of almost sappy niceness that is unexpected in today’s current comedy scene. Something the audience are very quick to appreciate and throw the odd “aww” in amongst all the laughing.
Self-deprecation is at the front of Dean’s notes too. He talks about how he is probably autistic and is awaiting testing, but simultaneously pointing to things about him that almost spell it out. Dean intentionally humanises himself and acknowledges his own “faults” or oddities and uses them incredibly effectively. Highlighting his tattoos and hyper-fixations that are…odd. An obsession with sunscreen and the Gremlins to name a couple, this self-aware talk is hilarious and with the added over-the-top voices and body language Dean utilises intermittently to accentuate his anecdotes, this makes for an achingly funny segment.
He also talks in length about heroes we have now and heroes we had growing up, how these people can literally influence our lives as adults, but also identifies, and exploits for laughs, their many faults. The sheer amount of disturbing things many of the people from the old days we consider “heroes” or “legends” did.
Some jokes landed less than most, mainly ones aimed at the “heroes” of old, but like Dean jokingly mentions, they might just be a bit too dark for midday. Had the audience had time to consume a pint or two, these would have gone down as effectively as the others.
For a work in progress, Dean’s jokes land on every front and the show itself feels fleshed out and well thought through. He only checked his notes twice, and once, intentionally or not, was led perfectly into a joke making the audience not even care that the notes were part of the set at all. A thoroughly clever and incredibly funny set that feels more personal and accessible than most comedy sets you’ll find at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.
Larry Dean’s show Work In Progress is on at Money Barrel Comedy from 15th-17th August. Get your tickets here:
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/larry-dean-work-in-progress
Theatre Scotland 
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