Andrew Doyle: Future Tense

Andrew Doyle is probably never asked to be Best Man at friends’ weddings. Because he absolutely adores ushering, if the pre-show moments here are any indication.

The one-time English teacher hovers inside the entrance and appears to just be helping, but then actively shepherds people where he wants them: a young couple to the front row where he can rubbish their nascent relationship later; a cheery-looking chap also up front, for good vibes and flirting; and a couple of grumpy-looking types right over to the left, far, far away from his eye-line. It’s a savvy system, if you can be bothered.

Then again, he’ll chiefly lose Best Man invites because they’d be nervous about the speech. Doyle is particularly embittered this year having recently lost out on a lucrative TV job—a political satire show, apparently—which instead went to an old comedy acquaintance. An ex public-schoolboy, naturally.

It’s good fuel for a rant, though, and Doyle is an absolute master – a surgical artist with anger where others just fire off invective in all directions. He’d make an absolutely cracking serial killer, as most victims would just happily sit back and enjoy the skill of it. Well his victims here do, anyway.

Future Tense is put together with impressive precision too, lots of tightly-scripted gems about party politics and an estranged twin, regular crap-pun intermissions, interwoven with some of the sharpest crowd work you’ll see this Fringe and a genuine ‘wow’ moment towards the end. TV show or no, Doyle’s future looks pretty shiny.