Mark Dean Quinn: You Win You Lose

Heroes @ Dragonfly (Venue 414)

This review comes with genuine apologies to all the people I have said were great but just not funny enough. Mark Dean Quinn’s show is not really funny at all. It should not be in the comedy section. But there is nowhere for a show like this to go, until we have a “Shows that play with you, make you laugh but not in a ‘ha-ha’ way, pull you in and then absolutely blow your mind” category. And I said “blow”, but I really meant something that rhymes with suck.

To tell you want happens would ruin everything. But I can tell you that this is as close as you will get to Stockholm Syndrome in a Fringe show. I am still reliving what happened. The six of us who sat in the darkness and walked into the night with Quinn ended up sitting and talking for half an hour after the show was done.

As we part one, of us says, “I think we did a good thing tonight,” and we all nod. You don’t get that after an hour with Nish Kumar. The darkness in this show is both literal and metaphorical, but that is our choice. There are potatoes and cakes and chips and at the centre of it all there is the almost unnervingly quiet, still, gently smiling Mark Dean Quinn.

Although the show moves gently – at times imperceptibly – it is deeply visceral. It makes you question yourself, even ashamed of yourself at times. It speaks so quietly and yet the stick it carries is the scariest on the Fringe. This is an ultimate experience. Go, embrace it, just be careful how you choose.

Until tomorrow. Today 10pm.