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Home arrow Archive: Earlier Fringes arrow Archive: Edinburgh 2012 arrow Dan Wright: Michael Jackson Touched Me
 
Dan Wright: Michael Jackson Touched Me
Published on Tuesday, 14 August 2012
3

3 stars

Gilded Balloon Teviot (venue website)
Comedy
1-12, 14-26 Aug, 9:30pm-10:30pm
Reviewed by Mathilda Gregory

 Recommended for age 16+ only.

Michael Jackson Touched Me (slightly cringey double meaning and all) is the story of the life of Dan Wright as a Michael Jackson super fan. And it’s quite a tale - a glimpse into a hidden world of obsessive fandom. What was it like down at the front row of a Jacko concert? Basically, completely crazy.

It’s these kinds of insights that make the show such a success, along with a couple of nice set pieces: an impressive dance routine and a long diatribe about some of the roots of various allegations made about Jackson during his fall from grace. But the real meat of the show is the thoughtful material about schooldays and Wright’s tricky choices about how open he was willing to be about his obsession, especially when liking Jackson became distinctly uncool.

The show isn’t as fun and inventive as it could be, and Wright’s story doesn’t really have a great deal to it in the end – although there’s a gruesomely funny moment in his dissection of the phone call his girlfriend had to make to get time off work to look after him, when he was overcome by grief in the wake of Jackson’s death. Other sections, like the one about his anger over jokes about Whitney Houston’s demise, trail off without going anywhere. 

But Wright’s clear enthusiasm for his subject matter shines. And, as we follow Wright’s story of his fanaticism to the present day, the show ends with a real sense of the contentment that can come from accepting who you are and your own passions – no matter how silly or derided they might be.

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