Leo Reich @ Pleasance Courtyard

Leo Reich's debut hour at the Edinburgh Fringe is a dazzling and brilliantly funny portrait of rabid millennial narcissism

Review by Emma Sullivan | 16 Aug 2022
  • Leo Reich

Leo Reich’s debut show, Literally, Who Cares, is dazzling. It's a portrait of rabid millennial narcissism that is brilliantly funny, and despite the artfully superficial persona, threaded through with melancholy and rage; emotion which is ironic and also not.

Reich arrives on stage archly anguished in remembering his last forward roll at the age of nine – ‘my last, and I didn’t even know it’ – and the momentum never slackens, powered by his imperious energy and the show’s punchy musical numbers. The theme of destroyed innocence is there throughout, as part of a generation born into a ruined world (one song is for ‘the old’, *shudder* so old they might miss the apocalypse they’ve been so busy making) with shrivelled expectations. The material is never less than scintillating – as he mocks his own empty performances of the liberal orthodoxy we’re so familiar with, the buzzwords that risk becoming hollowed out: lived experience, emotional labour, echo chambers.

The show’s satiric precision and brio is reminiscent of Catherine Cohen’s recent Netflix special and Fringe Newcomer-winning The Twist...? She’s Gorgeous, another portrait of camp self-regard. There’s a kinship, too, in the high octane virtuosity of the songs. The lingering brilliance of the social analysis, however, feels quite distinctive. It’s all here: performative convictions, the alienation of self, decimated attention spans, the sadness of coming of age in a pandemic (‘couldn’t this have been saved for an era when people had the capacity for this kind of thing, you know, the olden times?’ he asks, disgusted).

The mockery and the melancholy are perfectly modulated, and always hilarious. Leo Reich has crafted a stunning show, and one which is surely destined for acclaim beyond the Fringe.


Leo Reich: Literally, Who Cares, Pleasance Courtyard (Baby Grand), until 28 Aug (not 17), 9.35pm, £9.50-10.50