Moses Storm @ Pleasance Courtyard

Moses Storm’s Fringe debut starts out with a very cohesive concept – a one-night-only cult – and then loosens into something freer. That unfurling is deliberate: an attempt to overcome Storm’s inner control-freak and open up his experience to the serendipity of the moment.

Born into a cult, Storm’s story is hugely compelling, and offers extraordinarily rich material. Clearly keen to move on from his HBO special Trash White, we’re given only a taste of his past; slides of the family’s claustrophobic converted bus, a trail of kids walking along a highway holding a sign aloft. It was a failed cult: for all the efforts at spreading the word, it started with three families, and ended with three families. But rather than simply telling us about it, he wants us to actually experience it – and so a leader is chosen, and a name and a message emerge from the audience.

Storm is a charismatic, confident performer who plays up a certain head-tossing self-regard, but he’s always looking out for his people. There’s lots of glib chat about safe spaces but Storm genuinely does the work to manage the room – with clear parameters, and an intuitive sense of the audience personalities involved. His crowd-work is very funny: archly dismissive of one potential leader in the audience – only 1,000 social media followers – he lavishes attention over another, with 52,000. Storm relishes the interactions – giggling at the overly enthusiastic efforts to meet the brief.

While Storm’s charisma easily accommodates the meandering and sometimes messy narrative, there are moments when his eloquence becomes prolixity. However, he’s not trying to assume any false mastery – or slick commentary – over what was clearly an overwhelming experience. Swimming in it, Moses Storm invites us to swim along with him.

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Moses Storm: Perfect Cult, Pleasance Courtyard (Beneath), until 27 Aug (not 16 Aug), 10.20pm, £11-13