Ashley Haden hasn’t even officially started when the first story kicks in. As the audience file in, he’s already off on one about Fringe accommodation, squeaky beds, and the indignity of being ID’d for buying WD-40 — all delivered with the kind of irksome bite Alexei Sayle would happily sign off on. By the time the show “begins,” everyone’s already strapped in.

Haden sets his stall out early: this is going to get uncomfortable, and if you’re still in your seat, you’ve agreed to the ride. He’s had walkouts before (including people who have gone to his other shows just to walk out again), but tonight the crowd seem ready for it.

The premise sounds like pure provocation — all people are, as he bluntly puts it, c**ts. In lesser hands this could be style over substance, but Haden isn’t just good at this, he’s one of the best. What follows is his darkest, most thought-provoking hour yet.

He goes hard and he goes wide. Pro-lifers, Israel/Palestine, the ghoulish fascination with photos of dead babies (and the brilliantly grim invention of “Dead Baby Tinder”) — it’s uncompromising. Trump and Farage inevitably make appearances, dissected in forensic detail alongside Rupert Lowe, but always with the sense that this is about systems, not just personalities. One especially sharp sequence asks where we draw the line on compassion — and whether we’re really willing to give up anything at all.

And yet, amid the blackness, there’s a strange sliver of hope. After the barrage, Haden points to the uncomfortable truth that we still have more in common than what divides us. It’s not uplifting, exactly, but it feels like the kernel of why he’s doing this — and why audiences keep coming back.

Haden remains a talent unmatched on the circuit for this kind of material. He’s exactly what the Fringe’s late-night landscape has been lacking in recent years: dark, uncomfortable, necessary comedy. Yes, it’s funny — but it’s also fiercely political, thoroughly researched, and relentless. Comedy at its blackest, and all the better for it.