Gareth Morinan Is Playing the Numbers Game

The guy who bought a block of 11 separate listings in this year’s Fringe guide, thus effectively getting around the much steeper cost of a half-page advert—yeah, that guy—proves himself much more adept at controversial marketing schemes than comedy.

Such a noisy publicity stunt needed to be backed up by something pretty special, Free Fringe or not. But Morinan’s nerdy routine where data analysis meets dating would struggle to raise a strong laugh even if you heroically trudged through all of the other 10 listings.

His delivery isn’t bad at all – if an abler writer were providing the material you could imagine him bringing it to life with pace and punch. But the former civil service data analyst’s PowerPoint-happy shtick—based predominantly around the exhausted theme of venn diagrams—feels lazily second-hand. And his surrealist animations and video-mashes are wincingly weak and amateurish-looking – think David Trent running Clip Art on Windows 95. The section about trying to use his skills with number-crunching to enhance his chances with the ladies must be about variation 10million (not a scientific statistic, admittedly) on that old geeky-desperado-comedian-needs-girlfriend cliché. By the “dropping the bass” cartoon—one of the most lamely obvious play-on-words imaginable (yup, a fish)—you’re praying for a power-cut.

If there’s any real innovation displayed here, it’s Morinan’s Kickstarter-style sliding scale of cash-donation to hand-made rewards (postcards, posters, T-shirts etc) outlined at the end, a DIY touch that feels properly in keeping with the spirit of the Free Fringe.