Harriet Richardson's debut hour, Creep, at Pleasance Courtyard, is a gloriously juicy dive into obsession, shame, and desire. With the air of a hungover postmortem, Richardson gives a head-spinning account of an encounter with an older comedian, revealing the DMs, the eBay stalking, and the dating app pursuit that followed.
A scandalous debut hour
If you're partial to a bit of gossip and scandal, Harriet Richardson is your girl. In this gloriously juicy debut hour, she dishes the dirt on the DMs she received from an older comedian and the intense, utterly absorbing events that followed. Yes, she found his eBay account. And yes, she spent six months tracking him down on a dating app only to play his profile song hundreds of times. But what else is a girl driven by obsession supposed to do?
We meet Richardson, who until now has worked primarily as a performance artist, all smiles and ready to share. She takes us back to the creation of her 2024 viral piece 100 Dates, in which she spent Valentine's Day online speed-dating in an attempt to analyse her relationship with infatuation and connection. The comedian in question used the project as the opening line of his first message to her. What followed is flirtation so blatant it makes your toes curl: “Do you want to see my trophy?”; a string of saucy snaps; and finally a frantic voice note from the comedian's manager bringing the whole messaging saga to an abrupt end.
A natural storyteller
Richardson gives the room the air of a hungover postmortem after a messy night out. She giggles through her tale – still almost in disbelief that this is her life. Aided by an expertly timed PowerPoint presentation, she gives us the receipts wherever possible – even a blink-and-you'll-miss-it flash of an explicit picture. By the end you'll want to beg her to keep the confession session going.
That's because Richardson is a natural and deeply charismatic storyteller. Still, her hour unfolds as a pretty straightforward, singular narrative. Things play out chronologically, with the show taking the form of a debrief rather than a traditional standup hour packed with crafted jokes. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to be pulled into the drama.
Performance and identity
Underneath it all is the question of performance and how it connects to the version of ourselves we present in everyday life. And as Richardson is a performance artist who has made a career out of turning her feelings into material, it's a question that sends her head spinning more than most. For all our sakes, let's hope we get the honour of more of her tales and thoughts.
At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 30 August. All our Edinburgh festival reviews.
