Comedy review: Zach Zimmerman: Clean Comedy, Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, Edinburgh
Zach Zimmerman: Clean Comedy, Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, Edinburgh * * * *
Effortlessly assured at the mic, his cheeky yet charming, self-mocking but confident persona seem impregnable. And yet, from the recorded phone call that actually kicks off this show and his mother’s smiling photo ever-present beside him, there’s an immediate suggestion that all has not been right in the state of Virginia.
Indeed, a through-line throughout is his mother’s desire for him to reject his tales of rough and tumble gay dating in New York for “clean comedy”. Though this never seems likely, Zimmerman relates the hard-won journey he’s travelled to get where he is, indeed, to become a performer.
When he left his home for university, he fully reinvented himself but the disapproval of his family lingered, so Zimmerman decided to decamp to broad-minded New York. Even there, self-acceptance continued to elude him until news from back home turned his world upside down and he found the resolve to take pride in the “dirt” of his stand-up. And literally, graphically, love himself.
Clocking in at a pithily exquisite 45 minutes, Clean Comedy is a late-night treat of superior, coming-of-age storytelling swept along on Zimmerman’s beaming charisma and some tremendous gag-writing.
Until 26 August