Steen Raskopoulos: The Coolest Kid in Competitive Chess

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Steen Raskopoulos. What a total dreamboat. Like, really. He's genuinely a lovely man on stage, a charismatic yet thoughtful beta male for whom it's hard not to feel a huge degree of affection. Never mind the coolest kid in competitive chess – Raskopoulos comes across the nicest man at the Fringe. Who knows, he might be a rotter in real life, but there's a real craft in creating such a warm and supportive environment for his participatory games, and it's a craft that Raskopoulos has mastered.

An obvious comparison is to Adam Riches, the 2011 award winner. But where Riches bent audiences to his will by sheer force of character(s), the Australian treads a gentler path. Less bombastic bullying, more kind cajoling, and the audience tonight responds accordingly. It's carefully pitched, with Raskopoulos working to build rapport before he needs the audience to commit more and more.

It's all anchored by Raskopoulos's superb comic acting. If there's perhaps a lack of range it's because he knows what he's good at, and that's kind, slightly vulnerable personae who inspire pathos. It's all we can really do to stop ourselves getting up to give his 'lonely boy at a birthday party' a hug. And it's well structured, too, with a patchwork of skits and characters moving imperceptibly towards a coherent whole. But he gets away with an overlong recapitulation because we're so behind him and his crew of characters by that point. And the set piece based on an office party gone wrong gives him license enough to kill. A license which lovely Raskopoulos would undoubtedly not use.