If a story is funny, does it have to be true?
Lou Wall’s newest Fringe show, Breaking the Fifth Wall, is a meme-filled, musical, multimedia deep dive into this question. Wall takes their audience on a journey to explore the lines between authenticity, comedy, and storytelling. They do this by delving into their most viral clip — a Facebook Marketplace story so unbelievable, and yet so relatable to our personal experiences of the platform, that it seems like it must be true. The next hour deconstructs this story and its facts, while examining the broader implications of Wall’s comedic approach.
Wall is a brilliantly funny comedian, quick to develop a rapport with their audience, and able to keep everyone glued to their seats. They have immense charisma and seem born to perform on stage, regardless of whether their stories are exaggerated or not. Wall uses their hour of stand-up to ask crucial, meta questions about comedy as performance art. Is it storytelling? Non-fiction? When is it acceptable to change the details of a story for comedic effect, and when is it not? Detours along the way include true crime, male stand-up comics, and some very impressive video editing. The result is something almost overwhelming, yet fantastic.
Breaking the Fifth Wall effectively toys with the audience repeatedly, blurring the line between truth and fiction so frequently, and in so many different ways, that one simply has to laugh at how complex the performance becomes. Not everyone could pull off this kind of show — repeatedly breaking the audience’s trust while remaining likeable and engaging. Wall does it brilliantly.
Breaking the Fifth Wall cements Lou Wall as one of the best young comedians working at the Fringe today. Their hour of work is not only wickedly funny — it is also thought-provoking, narrative, and incredibly relevant in our modern climate of fake news and AI. Breaking the Fifth Wall is the kind of show you need to see to believe.
Breaking the Fifth Wall runs daily until 24 August at 10pm in Monkey Barrel 2 at Monkey Barrel Comedy.
Tickets are available for purchase here.
Press image courtesy of Monica Pronk / Individual Artist Management, provided to The Student as press material