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Remember That I Love You
Published on Saturday, 10 August 2013
4

4 stars

Laughing Horse @ The Free Sisters (venue website)
Comedy
1-25 Aug, 12:15pm-1:15pm
Reviewed by Mathilda Gregory

 Free and unticketed. No pre-booking required.
 Recommended for age 16+ only.

It seems an injustice Greg Akerman isn’t better known. His Fringe shows are cleverly-constructed, convoluted rides, which waver between stand-up and spoken word, and throw away more clever ideas than some workaday comedians have in a decade of Edinburghs. But perhaps that is part of his charm. And with so much of his material focused on his desire to become famous, it’s worrying what will become of his comedy if he achieves it.

Akerman’s shows are always self-obsessed stories about his own life, and whether he should pursue fame and attempt to be remembered after his death. Here, he meditates on the idea that people only truly die when the last person to remember them dies; and he puts this theory into practice with some odd experiments. A lot of his comic routines rely in Akerman being the cleverest person in the room, frustrated by the slowness of his peers, but there is enough evidence of his smarts to make this a fair comment.

He decides to experiment further by examining the life of someone who has died and was forgotten, and attempting to remember them in the way he would like to be remembered. He does this by way of time machines, and an odd connection between Victorian theatre and Throw Momma From the Train. That movie is an oddly commercial reference for Akerman; where many comedians rely on references to Britain’s Got Talent or Get Lucky, Akerman talks about Wittgenstein or William Sharpe, with the complete assumption that we will keep up. But that’s not to say there aren’t pure funnies in the show too: a routine about dialing 9 for an outside line is as solid as you will find anywhere.

In short, Akerman is incredibly good. If you like thoughtful, clever comedy full of niche references – and ideas you want to Google afterwards – then this is the place to find it.

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