I booked to see Chris Fleming’s show on minimal information. I’d seen his brilliant viral video, ‘Company is Coming,’ which to date has over 14 million views. More recently, I listened to his interview on fellow comedian Mike Birbiglia’s podcast. When I saw his UK shows advertised, I thought I should book one, because as an American, he doesn’t come to the UK very often – this was his first UK tour, having performed previously at the Soho Theatre. And I thought it’d be a fun night out. And I was so, so happy to be right.

Fleming was supported by pithy, assured Canadian stand-up Erica Ehler, who dealt elegantly with the pair of drunk and/or high people in front of us who laughed so loud and so long after every joke that that they constantly drew attention to themselves. It’s a testament to Chris Fleming too that from almost as soon as he starts, the audience were so delirious with laughter, they mostly stopped standing out. He wears a short-sleeved blue shirt and incredible flared lilac sparkly trousers. He travels across the stage with the dynamic, fluid physicality of a dancer (which he is.) We travel across time and space in varying degrees of hysteria – as he observed, the front row perpetually about to to wet themselves, everyone else having a consistently great time – through bits, anecdotes and observations. James Herriot is pretty minimally referenced in today’s comedy, never mind Tipper Gore and Chelsea Clinton, and Fleming puts that right. It’s hard as a foreign stand-up to do UK-specific observations, but they’re mixed in deftly too. He has a remarkable talent for wringing the comedy from every moment, getting the most out of every surreal, whimsical, hyper-specific joke by widening his pale blue eyes, kicking a twinkling leg, or high-fiving a lady in the front row, all while being entirely present.  I’ve never seen a stand-up show where the audience were so unquestioningly invested – not just in terms of liking the performer, but in terms of being willing to go to wherever they want to go in their material. 

My notes from the show are hard to make sense of and seem like chaotic improv prompts; ‘low stakes…like James Herriot,’ ‘police crab,’ ‘starfish with JK Simmons from Whiplash arms,’ ‘horse people…. so sinister.’ A lot of award-seeking Edinburgh Fringe stand-up shows attempt to draw a narrative arc, weaving comedy and personal tragedy and culminating in a moment of emotional and comedic payoff. This has its own problems; it’s difficult to do well, for one, and should it be necessary to mine your personal suffering to add creative weight to your comedy, for another? Can’t you just be funny? I mention this because there is really no narrative to Chris Fleming Live: On Stage. It builds a picture of Fleming and his sense of humour, sure, but more than anything it’s just hilariously, relentlessly funny. 

Are we going to watch Fleming’s sparkling form undulate around the stage as he pretends to be a police crab? Yes. Are we going to watch him joke about how his androgynous appearance would help him sneak onto a Titantic lifeboat? Yes. Are we going to listen to an extended anecdote about being pressured into buying fancy hats? Yes. This was probably my favourite bit of the entire show, which really encapsulated his whimsy and talent for characterisation. It’s almost impossible to describe comedy without wringing all the humour from it, but his impression of the judgmental teenager selling hats was absolutely transcendent ‘he failed the sorcerer test….[he had] eyes that had seen Prussia.’ It ramps up masterfully and with a spectacular payoff. Oh, and there are several songs too, supported by visuals and lyrics on the screen behind him. One in the middle is a ridiculous and hilarious take on luxury cinemas, and we end with an exploration of an unsettling haunted house attendee. The latter is weaker, and given the perfectly curated momentum of the hat segment, it seems like a more logical ending. But it’s a minimal note. I wish I could go back and see the show again so I could enjoy it even more, knowing how good it was. I hope some TV executives saw the tour and give Fleming his own TV show. And I wish I’d bought a t-shirt.

Chris Fleming’s special Hell is available to watch on Apple TV here. Erica Ehler is performing at the Edinburgh Fringe from July 29th-Aug 25th.