This review is from the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Larry Dean is the workhorse of Saturday Night Live UK: the Glaswegian comic didn’t necessarily get the kudos of the show’s breakout stars like George Fouracres or Jack Shep, or his younger fellow stand-ups Ania Magliano and Paddy Young. But in season one he performed in more sketches than anybody else, and if you didn’t notice then that’s because he’s a chameleonic presence, his astonishing command of accents making him an invaluable supporting player.
It’s also somewhat unfair to invoke SNL when he’s been a big deal in Scotland in particular for over a decade: certainly he’s playing the biggest room at the Fringe this year of anyone from the show.
A set of old school observational raconteurism
And it’s a very pleasant hour of comedy, albeit one that feels summed up by Dean’s late confession that he gave the show the title Hellbent because he was expecting there to be more fractiousness around his recent wedding to his now husband than was in fact the case. The large contingent of Catholics and small delegation of Iranians at the wedding had a lovely time, apparently. Instead the show is framed around his relationship with his autistic, Black County-accented husband - from meeting to marriage - and is essentially a set of old school observational raconteurism.
It’s all very agreeable, elevated by Dean’s gift for accents. He never quite makes it his main thing, but he’s incredibly deft with it: his bit on the two...
Comedy tribute acts are all the rage these days. First Kenneth Williams, then Eric and Ern. Now it’s the turn of another UK comedy giant, Tommy Cooper, to get the ‘Stars in Their Eyes’ treatment – in this slight but thoroughly likeable show that comes with the approval of the Cooper estate.
At 6' 4", Cooper was a comedy giant in more ways than one. His lumbering frame and granite features (captured in John Claridge’s wonderful black-and-white photo portraits which stare down from the walls of the museum’s tiny performance space) were integral to his act, a perfect counterpoint to the childlike glee of his rapid-fire gags and artfully dysfunctional magic.
With that in mind, first impressions of the new Tommy Cooper – played by baby-faced 26-year-old John Hewer – are not great. However, with a tip of the fez here, a shrug of the shoulders there and, most importantly, excellent comic timing, the legendary Welsh comedian is slowly but surely resurrected, some 30 years after his death. It’s a fine, remarkably faithful performance from the talented Hewer.
So we get ‘spoon jar, jar spoon’, the farcical card tricks, the oddball props and that infectious cackle. At best it’s rather like a Harry Hill show: full of inspired lunacy and deep, belly laughs (in the case of the Cooper diehards in the audience, who know every word to these classic routines, laughter often escapes well before the punchlines). At worst it’s like suffering a string of rotten Christmas cracker jokes from an attention-seeking uncle.
Of course, this avalanche of jokes and magical flubs can be exhausting, and Hewer wisely employs musical interludes to add variety. Unfortunately, despite his obvious skill, pianist Christopher Peters simply performs a pair of lukewarm ditties in the Richard Stilgoe mould, complete with horribly dated Home Counties whimsy. It’s a poor fit and the only real misfire in an otherwise entertaining two hours.
One other thing to note: stick around for the interval, when you’ll be greeted by the awesome sight of a man slowly and solemnly letting the air out of an eight-foot inflatable giraffe, the remnants of some inspired shtick at the close of the first half. If that’s not reason enough to recommend a show, I don’t know what is.