Ayo Adenekan @ Monkey Barrel

Young, Black and Scottish, it's a perspective we don't hear much of – and Ayo Adenekan's Fringe debut has been eagerly anticipated as a result. The show's title, Black Mediocrity, plays on the idea of Black excellence, and Adenekan reiterates throughout the exhausting pressures to both be exceptional and to fit in. 

From his parents' arrival in Edinburgh, to his primary and secondary school experiences and his young adult life, we get the broad outlines, but somehow the detail feels lacking. Perhaps in trying to communicate broadly to the widest possible audience, Adenekan loses some specificity. His portrait of Edinburgh, for example, feels rather generic. We hear about the city when his parents arrived from Nigeria in the 90s, the edgy Trainspotting era, then through to the plush, gentrified Harry Potter era, but there's little here that goes beyond a caricature of the city.  

Threaded throughout are some dark moments: microaggressions, incidents of casual, cruel racism and one occasion in particular which sounds profoundly painful, but there's a sense in which Adenekan hasn't fully worked out how to manage the degree of disclosure. He also tends to invest too much time in repeated sections which fail to build – and the pay-off isn't sufficient. There are some lovely skits on the wee shop and the big shop and on his Doctor Who disappointment – queer, Black, and Scottish, Ncuti Gatwa got in there before him. And of course, as Adenekan notes drily, in the media economy there's only space for one version of that particular identity.

Adenekan is a charming, laid-back performer, but the struggle to square the circle of fitting in and standing out feels like an issue here with the comic yet to hit his stride.

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Ayo Adenekan: Black Mediocrity, Monkey Barrel (Cab Vol 2), until 24 Aug (not 13), 1.30pm, £7-8