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I Regret This Already

 
Paul Fisher Cockburn Review by Paul Fisher Cockburn 4 Published: 10 Aug 2025 PBH's Free Fringe @ Liquid Room Show Dates: 2 Aug 2025-24 Aug 2025

Bennett Arron has been a professional stand-up comedian for almost 27 years but, as he admits early on, he hasn’t performed on stage for two years – for reasons he will touch on during his set – and so is actually ever so slightly nervous.

A solid basis on which to build a show

Not that you’d have guessed from his demeanour. Arron appears remarkably calm and confident—though not in an arrogant way. To help bring his audience onside, he’s overtly self-deprecating about his driving skills and sex life, as you might expect from a middle-aged father with grown-up children (one of whom is in another Fringe show and helping out “the old man” with the flyers). He’s honest enough to warn us that the show will cover such delightful comedic subjects as dementia, depression and death. But that’s life, to rely on a cliché, and there are plenty of laughs – even if some depend on the apparent stupidity of Las Vegas audiences or people who come into the room about three-quarters of the way through, clearly looking for another show. Arron barely blinks and acts with both grace and decency – which suggests such interruptions may be part and parcel of performing in the Liquid Rooms.

As with many comedy shows at the Fringe, I Regret This Already is strongly autobiographical, and Arron isn’t shy to name-drop occasionally. Hailing from Port Talbot in Wales, he claims connections with the likes of Michael Sheen, Rob Brydon and Sir Anthony Hopkins. The latter, in particular, is involved in one of the small regrets that make up the narrative heart of the show – Arron’s feelings of remorse and sadness as much about things he didn’t do (spending more time with ailing parents, for example) as much as the things he did. This, it’s fair to say, is common ground for most of us and certainly a solid basis on which to build a show.

There are serious moments throughout – memories of loss and illness, and brief concerns about how we appear to have forgotten how to communicate with each other, especially online. But these are generously balanced by laugh-out-loud moments of observational comedy, along with numerous wry asides in response to the audience. All of which suggest that, despite two years away from the stage, Arron is still on top form and well worth tracking down in the warren that is the Liquid Rooms.

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The Blurb:

You know what it's like when everything's going well? Bennett doesn't. He was in the Top 10 Jokes of the Fringe 2023 and he's BAFTA shortlisted, yet life still laughs at him. Queue early to enjoy disappointment. 'Genuinely original and funny' (Times). 'Had the room creased up' **** (Scotsman).