One of a stampede of comedians making the London-Edinburgh journey for the festival, Feilder knows his Fringe conventions well and isn't afraid to use them to meta-comic effect. With a clever use of multimedia and never-ending supplies of energy, Feilder works his way through the dating world, his own romantic history and what he considers to be his shortcomings. There aren't many of them, to be honest, and throughout the show he shows us more of what he is than what he isn't: impish, thirty-ish and unafraid of dancing on stage.
Even with a smaller audience, our host keeps up the energy through harsh but witty anecdotes from his own life
Likeable, laughable and more than a little bit nerdy, Feilder starts his show with an awkward rap about comedy itself and gives us a few hints of what's to come. Though he ridicules theatrical and comedic tropes from the off, he has crafted a show which really holds itself together, and even has something of a character arc by the end. Self-deprecation is taken to a whole new level through a sarcastic slideshow which runs throughout the hour, as well as dingy videos meant to demonstrate the manly qualities which Feilder, for better or for worse, lacks. Ridiculing and analysing the everyday, which so often makes a routine a little hackneyed, here was treated with the exaggerated commentary of a sports announcer, and proved very funny besides.
Even with a smaller audience, our host keeps up the energy through harsh but witty anecdotes from his own life sandwiched between the odd song and interjection from the slideshow, all of which gets further and further out of his control. At some points it was difficult to see how he had arrived at a certain gag, as Feilder used his slides to introduce topics which sometimes seemed random for the sake of randomness. Once we had arrived at a certain topic, however, we were glad to be there, and it's clear that, for all the things Simon Feilder is not, he is both highly self-critical and grindingly funny.
