For those visiting the Fringe for the first time, the one thing that might come as a surprise is just how many shows are up here, and what constitutes a venue: the basement of a pub, yes, but also a former metalworks, or a fully-functioning sauna (BYO swimwear).
So the shipping containers at the Pleasance Courtyard are almost an establishment options; still, it feels pretty special to find a comedian performing at this level here.
Admittedly, Kate Dehnert is a well-established comedian back in Australia. Oh, and it’s not her first time in Edinburgh per se, and this is where our story starts.
Opening with the scene of Dehnert looking at her phone at a wedding, way back in the summer of 2024, she checks ‘Find My Friend’ to see where her partner’s venue is, given he’s up at the Fringe (and she’ll presumably be up at some point to support). Ah, that venue is quite far north. Oh…
The realisation and revelation of infidelity with someone so young she’s “just discovered French arthouse cinema” is the start of the most unimaginable spiral, a nuclear bomb detonating, the foundations of her whole life immediately collapsing around her: relationship, career, income, partner visa, London life, any chance of kids.
Of course, we get the necessary reminder at the start that it’s a comedy show and it’s fine to laugh: I’ve done the work, this is my story and I want to tell it – but still, it doesn’t make the front row want to high-five a suicide attempt.
If this makes the experience of watching Echo sound utterly bleak, well, that couldn’t be much further from the truth. For a start, Dehnert has HUGE energy on stage, as if she could (well, did) take the weight of the world on her shoulders and carry on. She bounds on soundtracked by pumping music, is soon throwing Kleenex around like confetti, and there’s no let-up for the whole hour. For a show covering break-ups, suicidal ideation, and existential dread, my God it’s funny.
At times, in the most impassioned parts of the hour, it does almost feel like watching a breakdown live on stage, every attempt at understanding what’s happened resulting in emotional bullets to her fragile body and mind. Should we all be enjoying this as much as we are?
But the very fact we’re asking that question is testament to how well Dehnert takes us right back to her earlier despair and anguish. In a less surefooted act, there might be less immediate concern, as we wouldn’t be right back there, in those moments; it is only because she is such a fine performer that it still feels so real, right now, in a shipping container in Edinburgh. We are there, with Dehnert – we’re overhearing her conversations with her friends, with her ex-partner, with herself.
The internal monologues (one half recorded, the other half performed by Dehnert on stage) form a good part of the show, whilst much of the rest is either her own soundtracked thoughts, or original songs performed with the accompaniment of some thumping bass.
And this is where the real magic, almost trickery, of the show lies. In the guise of some fairly, err, loony tunes (“Little toilet girl, get the gloves out!”), we hear some thought-provokingly bleak and brilliant jokes about the struggles of processing a breakdown and the associated mental anguish of the unravelling of her life.
Therapy chat is smuggled through under the cover of darkness, and a light show; it’s like going to a rave with a Buddhist monk. “In order to ascend we must first descend”. Amen (that’s definitely not what they say, is it?) to that.
And just in case the artistic brilliance of that delivery method for the show wasn’t enough for you, Dehnert’s occasional reassurances – no, look, I’ve had lots of expensive therapy, and comedy is my thing and he’s not taking that from me as well – should get you over the line.
But hey – it’s not about you. It’s now about Dehnert. The voices in her head, that had previously said “my life is not my own…I’m a coin that always lands on the wrong side” have been answered. The blast radiation area has been decontaminated by hours of counselling, and the support of a community.
At one point towards the end of the show, Dehnert describes how, during the relationship, to keep her ex-partner at bay, “I worked on myself until I didn’t really exist any more.”
Well – here she is now, existing as fuck.