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A bit nervous and awkward, wearing a grey suit he describes as ‘the outfit of a charity shop manager’, New Zealand comedian Ray O’Leary makes a memorable appearance on the Pleasance Courtyard stage. With a sold-out run at Edinburgh Fringe 2024, O’Leary comes back to the Scottish capital with his new stand-up comedy, Laughter? I Hardly Know Her.
He immediately wins the audience over with his awkward stage presence. Within seconds of his appearance, the Taskmaster star lets out an awkward: ‘Oh no, why did you stop the applause after I touched the microphone?’.
While twitching and constantly touching his glasses and hair, O’Leary delivers a compilation of hilarious anecdotes, with a monoton voice and serious facial expressions. An emotional neutrality delivered through a phenomenal deadpan, part of his act is the facade of not realising how entertaining and singular his persona is.
Line after line dives into O’Leary’s extravagant way of seeing the world, and some peculiar moments of the comedian life. O’Leary starts by telling the story of when he got diagnosed with autism by a woman stopping him on the street and thanking him for his incredible representation. And going on, some philosophical reflections, and a section on abortion and 9/11 that got some guilty laughs.
O’Leary embodies an oxymoronic character, a sort of ‘awkward but totally confident’ individual. The stage represents his comfort and familiar place, even if he jokes about the performance’s Pleasance location: ‘In New Zealand I perform in theatres, and here they put me in a box container.’
Ray O’Leary’s Laughter? I Hardly Know Her was at Beside at Pleasance Courtyard during Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Review date: 25th August
