One of my worst fears is having to endure a painfully awkward conversation with a stranger who won’t stop talking to you despite your clear discomfort.
It’s an agonising scenario that Freddie Meredith’s alter ego — an unnamed man with the Instagram handle ‘beerexpert6969’ — forces his audience to survive through in his show Freddie Meredith: Need A Light?
In this one hour comedy, Pleasance’s Baby Grand theatre teleports its audience into the smoking area of a dingy nightclub. As we sit in dim street lighting, listening to muffled club classics blaring from behind the stage, it is here we are introduced to a man (played by Freddie Meredith) dressed in an outfit only Will from the Inbetweeners might find appropriate for a nightclub. Approaching you in a white shirt, tie, and tight skinny jeans, he initiates painful small talk with various members of the audience by beginning with the age-old icebreaker question; “Need a light?”
Awkwardness is always a component of successful comedies, and with a rising star like Freddie Meredith, who some may recognise as Seb from the BAFTA-winning BBC sitcom Such Brave Girls, it’s no surprise that Meredith’s character of “the awkward, rather odd guy” racks up a lot of laughs in this show.
But getting an audience to squirm from uneasy small talk has been done many times before, notably with Peep Show’s Mark Corrigan and Rob Webb acting as the blueprint. To separate his comedy from those that have come before therefore, Meredith finds new, creative avenues for audience engagement that gives this show a fresh, original touch.
This works best in segments like when beerexpert6969’s phone activity is shared to the audience on a projector. So, when he tells us in the smoking area he’s just “off to go check on where his mates are” and we actually know he’s only shopping on Amazon for “cool ripped jeans” and alpha-looking vest tops.
In other efforts to strive for comedic originality, audience members were asked on stage by Meredith’s character, either to “go to the toilet with him” or to perform a couple’s karaoke tune. It was these moments where Meredith made use of his crowd, compared to other segments of the show based on more passive audience engagement, that brought the most energy and humour into the theatre.
By the end of the show, you cannot help but have developed an odd likability for Meredith’s character. In the show’s finale, audience members are even up and dancing with him in the club, embracing ‘beerexpert6969’ with a smile — even if he’s still a little awkward.
Freddie Meredith: Need A Light? Is running until the 30th at Baby Grand in Pleasance Courtyard. Buy tickets here.
Image provided as press material.
