The Comedian’s Comedian podcast, in which comic Stuart Goldsmith interviews one standup per episode, has now featured more than 500 guests. But never the tricksy comedian Luke McQueen. So this show opens with a real (or is it?) phone call to Goldsmith, during which McQueen demands to know why he’s never been on the podcast. The answer is of little consequence. McQueen has a sample of Goldsmith’s voice so he can create a compliant AI version of the podcast host and record his own episode live on stage.
McQueen’s past work on stage and TV has delighted in playing with the truth. He pretended to be the scorned former double-act partner of Jack Whitehall, lured audiences into a show on the false promise that Frankie Boyle would be there, and publicly debased himself to win back a fictional girlfriend.
His persona, simultaneously high-status and desperate for approval, returns in Comedian’s Comedian, while McQueen explores AI, ambition and the nature of artistic vulnerability in deliciously fresh ways.
The conceit is that he wants this interview to showcase him as a “misunderstood artist”, but his AI interviewer has other ideas, and undermines him with questions about his lack of fame, family and driving licence. There is tension between the pressure for comedians to bare their souls to achieve success, and McQueen’s conviction that true bravery means taking risks that might not pay off. And it’s all cut through with enjoyably grotesque jokes about McQueen’s online activities, a memorable segment featuring alter ego Professor Franklin, and an uncomfortable encounter with McQueen’s teenage self.
There’s a heady mix of introspection and mischief as McQueen pulls the rug multiple times, teasing that we might finally get to see behind the metaphorical (and at one point, literal) mask. Directed by Jordan Brookes, it’s relentless fun from a master of ambiguity.
• At Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh, until 24 August
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