Meet Nate Palomino, a real man’s man – a motorbike-riding (only a toy one, on this stage, but we get the picture), axe-wielding, hairy-chested, beer-chugging, breast-grabbing alpha male. The breast-grabbing really does happen to women in the front row, as does the cupping of one man’s genitals, but before they do we catch a glimpse of what Nate is hiding inside.
Inside, of course, is Natalie Palamides, last year’s Best Newcomer winner at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and before s/he continues with the extra-personal contact with her audience members, she asks if they mind. Then she turns her head slowly around everyone else in the room, pressing the point home; the knuckle-headed but loveable alpha doofus Nate offering the polar opposite of “grab ‘em by the p***y” before initiating contact. “You just aaassskkk,” repeats Nate with a grin, as if talking to a room full of schoolchildren who haven’t quite figured out why they keep ending up on the naughty step.
There are deep and urgent conversations between the lines here about consent, where to find it, and where it may be difficult to agree upon, particularly in one bravura sequence involving trying-hard-to-be-sensitive Nate’s date with his evening class art teacher (also Palamides). Yet the sensitivity required to have these talks is delivered by an outstanding comedy creation whose outlook is – for want of a better description – not the most politically correct.
Nate calls out a guy in the crowd for dating his ex, identifies another as his best friend and oldest bro – with whom he shares an obliviously homoerotic relationship – and ends up standing soaking under a shower nozzle, crying as he tugs on the enormous rubber genitalia stuffed down his pants. Showcasing her abilities as a comic actor of great skill, Palamides has brought a show to Edinburgh which might appeal to anyone; right-on but transgressive, thoughtful but bad taste, and never less than snortingly funny.
Until 26 August. https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/natalie-palamides-nate
