Olga Koch is brilliant. She brings a vibrant new show where she tells her best story, only it’s not really her story. Sent as her family’s ambassador to a wedding nobody else could be bothered attending, Koch finds herself seated next to a fellow outsider: a thirty-something former frat guy that we later find out is nicknamed Fat Tom Cruise. What follows is a fast-paced, endlessly clever hour that uses this chance encounter to dive into something much bigger: the various ways men experience humiliation, structured as a series of retellings of Supreme Court case studies.
Koch’s delivery is fantastic throughout, aided by a clever set design built around projectors and warm, funny audience interactions (a nose “boop” among them). She is impressively well read, weaving historical and political knowledge into bits on Gerard Butler, abortion statistics, and a running dialect and accents academy gag, all without ever losing the audience or the momentum. Storylines on a ‘closeted’ friend’s brush with conversion therapy inflicted by her to win over Shane are fantastic, while a bit crowning her as the “heterosexuality final boss” brings out one of the biggest laughs I’ve heard at the Fringe this year.
Sound operator Josie deserves credit too, with musical transitions and soundboard use that land laughs of their own. The show’s late twist could easily jar, but instead the show pulls everything full circle into a genuinely profound ending. Koch is enormously likeable, and this is a Fringe hour with real substance behind the laughs.
Olga Koch: Fat Tom Cruise.17:30.Forth at Pleasance Courtyard, until August 30
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/olga-koch-fat-tom-cruise
