Colin Hoult: Colin Review – Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Grande Dame

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
The fringe veteran unpacks his idiosyncratic childhood in a vividly realised show about class, family and neurodiversity

Colin Hoult has been performing at the fringe for 20 years, but never with what most comics give us at the start: a solo show, about himself. Now, the sketch act turned alter ego of ageing thespian Anna Mann steps out from behind the masks, with a standup set about his own eccentric family background. It’s an hour that quietly casts its spell, as detail upon detail is added to a telling portrait, with a strong sense of place, of an unexceptionally difficult working-class childhood. Back in 80s Nottingham, “Little Col” (named after his dad) grows up in a family with neither language nor understanding of their considerable idiosyncrasy – or as we now comprehend it, neurodiversity.

First up, it’s fun for Hoult-watchers to see how his own standup persona overlaps with that of theatrical grande dame Mann. No surprise there, given that her swansong performance (comedy award-nominated at Edinburgh two summers ago) confessed to the slippage between character and creator. So here comes Colin, almost as camp and just as conspiratorial with his audience, spiriting us back to a troubled childhood in the shadow of Mapperley mental health hospital. Not just physically (his window overlooked it) but psychologically: “he’s not right”, his family mutter of Little Col, threatening him with expulsion to the former lunatic asylum. That’s a bit rich: he’s not the one staging séances on Christmas Day, communing with gorillas.