Andrew White @ Monkey Barrel Comedy

Jaded Fringe audiences can be pretty mean about grief in stand-up, rolling their eyes at the very concept of the ‘Dead Dad Show’, and Andrew White is well aware of that fact. What a Life! is concerned with not one, not two, but three bereavements – his mother, his grandfather, and his friend the comedian Gareth Richards, who died in 2023. But he insists up front that the show will be a celebration of their lives, following the example of his mother who insisted on having no funeral but a ‘living wake’.

White goes to such lengths to find joy in the show, in fact, that it’s possible to forget during the hour that he’s mining what must be a period of intense pain, losing three of his closest people in his early 20s. “The only way to celebrate life is by living it” becomes White’s refrain, and it’s an exceptionally warm-hearted show he’s built to get that message across, celebrating not just the dead, but the carriers of that message in life (see, for example, White’s infectious love and admiration for a local Salisbury clown, Jonathan the Jester).

Along the way, White visits weighty topics like assisted dying and cancer with a light touch. He’s also a smart enough writer to know when to lift the thing with breezier interludes, including a series of dispatches from his efforts as a refund-hunter and parking ticket-appealer. Although it may feel like we’ve seen plenty similar before, these are the show’s comic highlight.

As the show builds to its emotional climax, it’d be fair to hope that the gags hit just a little harder – some fall flat, and plenty, like all that time spent on parking fines, feel a little too familiar. But it’d be a stony audience member indeed who wasn’t swept along by White’s insistence on love and optimism in dark times.

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Andrew White: What a Life!, Monkey Barrel (Cab Vol 2), until 30 Aug, 5.45pm, £13.50/£11.50