one4review | On 16, Aug 2025

Meandering, clever, funny, with a little tenderness: Nate Kitch is an
accomplished wordsmith whose natural warmth and mischievous humour fills
the room with genuine laughter. The stage itself sets the tone –
handcrafted notices (“laugh laugh,” “BLUR”), a Samuel Beckett photo, and
a lonely cap on the mic stand – already painting a picture of inventive
nonsense to come.

Kitch, a monologue comic in the spirit of Simon Munnery and Tim Key,
leans into nonsense with sly confidence. He jokes that the Gilded
Balloon billed him as a “safe pair of hands,” despite no tech, broken
glasses and no clear explanation of why he’s here at all – except that
he loves laughing at nothing and proposes that to the audience.

His narratives drift delightfully. Is it he or Keir Starmer who is the
“centre ground of alternative comedy,” there’s a Rasputin aside, his
grandfather at ninety still fiercely independent even after a fall, BBC
Radio stations neatly skewered (“5Live = angry sport”), hats worn in
wrong ways, while Matisse’s Snail is declared to demonstrably look
nothing like a snail.

The structure is gleefully off-kilter. We’re told not to laugh when he
leaves the room, only for him to exit and re-enter repeatedly, once
after asking a passer-by for some tea. Sound-box “malfunctions” swell
absurdly; at one point ancient gaming music overwhelms; a sombre funeral
tune escorts a banana-eating finale.

Yet amidst the daftness comes kindliness: his sadness at his Nan’s death
after 5 weeks of not eating, the reminder that comedy is how we survive
bad times. No agent, no PR, no tech, just a Fringe bursary despite his
haggle about needing 5 exclamations marks after his show title, and
buckets of inventive, memorable charm.

He ends by asking us to recommend his show “to people who’d hate it” –
that thought leaves us all chuckling.

****1/2

Reviewed by HJ

Gilded Balloon – Patter House

17.00 (1hr)

Until 25 Aug