Shane Torres @ Assembly Roxy

It’s a tale as old as the Fringe itself, but no less bittersweet for all that. A comic who is officially a Big Deal back home finds his Edinburgh crowd, shall we say, temporarily embarrassed. It’s to Shane Torres’ eternal credit that by the end of this spellbinding hour of storytelling he may as well be playing to a packed arena.

This show is fiercely autobiographical, sometimes toe-curling in its honesty, and playing on themes which don’t get any bigger when it comes to family matters: toxic masculinity and motherly love. From stints helping his dad move into a homeless shelter, to “date nights” with his workaholic mother, there’s pathos but never pity to the way Torres lays out his life. It’s also deliciously dark in places, with a memorable sequence involving an urn of ashes and some Taco Bell.

Torres has a whimsical style, akin to sitting at a bar listening to a regular spin tall tales, but he’s also sharp enough to throw in ad libs and sidebars and make them count. Picture Kris Kristofferson singing Bill Hicks covers in a downtown Texas honky-tonk. Torres sells himself on his straightforward style, pointing out that this might be the most normal show any of us see at the Fringe – “there are no juggling penguins,” he promises – and yet the time we spend with him never drags or feels like it’s lacking a prop.

Ultimately, this is a difficult thing to get right: comedy about sadness. The skill with which Torres weaves the flat mundanity of day-to-day life into the jaw-dropping absurdity of some of the situations he finds himself in means that there are tears of sadness as well as laughter. It’s also a story of redemption and hope, however, that never wallows in the dark stuff for too long. The crowd may have been compact and bijou, but none of us will ever look at Mexican food the same way again.

---

Shane Torres, Assembly Roxy (Downstairs), until 30 Aug (not 12, 19, 26), 6.50pm, £13.50-£16.50