Tim Key @ Pleasance Courtyard

Tim Key, age undetermined, is back at the Edinburgh Fringe, with a concert just for us – it’s all for us, he’s keen to remind us, apart from when it’s also ‘all for the fucking empire’ – and thank God he is.

Breathe your sighs of relief now, because it’s the last time you’ll be able to take a full breath with Key about. This is a chest-aching, side-splitting, rib-cracking hour – sorry, 58 minutes – of stand-up. What more can you expect? Key is a poet-actor-filmmaker-comedian pro. There isn’t a minute to spare from laughing to analyse the fact that we’re taking unbridled pleasure in the breakdown of a middle-aged man. 

That’s what the show is, loosely, all about. Gabby Logan, Key’s House of Games co-star, invited him on her podcast Mid Point to talk about what it’s like being at the middle stage of his life. Cue: outrage. Is Key really at his mid-point, he laments? He has so much left to give. ‘I am ambitious!’ he shouts time and time again, away from the microphone (Key forgoes the mic often, which is our only, very minor, gripe. We want to hear it all, Key!). ‘I am ambitious - I want to swim with the eels!’

This hour proves it; there is poetry, there are competitive interactions with the crowd, there is an ongoing, increasingly absurd scene in a cafe featuring a waitress, a suitcase, and a whole card deck of ambitions. 

Key is sublime. In our opinion, no ambition of his is too far-fetched – even swimming with the eels. In fact, we want him to keep on clambering up the ladder of stand-up, until way beyond his mid-point, until his ‘scrotum is threadbare.’ Because, wowee, Key. We don’t mind if we do.

---

Tim Key: Loganberry, Pleasance Dome (Queen Dome), until 24 Aug, 5.30pm, sold out, returns only