The Paul Foot in your mind might be the cult genius who trots about the stage with an eccentric haircut, delighting audiences with absurdist nuggets and off-kilter observations.
The Paul Foot on stage in Edinburgh this month presents many of these attributes, but with an entirely new dimension which contributes to a sublime experience. “If I don’t have a metaphor I’ll be crucified by the critics,” he jokes, before floating us onto a glowing cushion of beauty, peace and laughter. Is this what Heaven is like?
In his most personal show to date, Foot is talking about change – in all its forms. On 20 March, 2022, he was driving through Manchester and something switched in his brain. Decades of depression and anxiety just melted away and he was released from the trauma of something awful that had happened to him when he was younger.
To share any more about this would spoil it (though I will say that even if it has enlightenment at its heart, it wasn’t a religious experience), but what he reveals has me crying at several points, for several reasons.
Along the way, Foot treats us to some other examples of change, using typically unusual approaches to rail against intolerance and cruelty. His bits imagining church iconography if Jesus had been killed in a different way are exceptional, and riffs on Tutankhamun’s teenage preoccupations could not be more perfect.
I will never, ever forget this beautiful show or how it made me feel. Inject Paul Foot into my veins, please.
Paul Foot: Dissolve
19.20
Underbelly Cowgate
Until 27 Aug
