Ed Patrick: Junior Optimist

Given that he’s a junior doctor, and holding a symbolically precarious NHS balloon in his press photo, Ed Patrick is a lot less furious than you might expect. Or perhaps he’s just hiding it well for most of this, his first Edinburgh hour.

Junior Optimist isn’t really about the NHS—you’ll want Dr Phil Hammond’s show for the full Jeremy Hunt hunt—but more about Patrick’s ups and downs, which inevitably are hospital-heavy anyway, early on. And he doesn’t hold back. Even if Patrick wasn’t so assured, his nuggets of behind-the-wards info would be worth hearing. “A lot of the time,” he admits, “we’re just guessing.” Okay, so perhaps we didn’t want to hear that bit.

The part-time comic—and he must be seriously part-time, given the hours these poor buggers infamously do—looks thoroughly at home doing a full Fringe show. But then it’s probably a lot more relaxed than that other line of work, when you think about it. When someone dies on stage they usually wake up again.

This is a well-structured set, moving seamlessly from health service stuff to family and his own love life, while just about remaining on theme. Mixing things up late on there’s a fine set piece about his struggles to perform during certain sexual encounters, which features our host sitting with his back to the audience while having an urgent meeting with a certain part of his anatomy, like a man trying to encourage a stunt hamster. Enduring image.

He certainly doesn’t struggle to perform here, though. A very promising debut indeed.