The Dead Dad Show has become an Edinburgh trope – the show a comic makes when he loses his father is rumoured to be a sure-fire way to garner awards.

 

In his show Simon David simultaneously sends up this Fringe tradition while also giving us a truly original take on a Dead Dad Show.

 

He begins with a musical number.  In a sparkly skirt and platform boots he performs an over-the-top introduction to himself – a future star – a boy in a skirt.

 

It’s a pastiche of a recent musical – in which a young northern boy becomes a drag queen – but it’s also a very silly way of sending up his own showbiz dreams.

 

David is a desperate thespian – crazy for fame, awards and glory and prepared to try any style of performance in order to succeed at the Fringe.

 

So he gives us serious northern drama – with drawn out meaningful pauses.  He stars in a  graphic gay porn movie, set in 1980s New York.

 

There’s even a very funny straight stand-up section, in which David staggers around the stage in the style of a Netflix Special, shouting out edgy words.

 

And there’s experimental theatre – where David gets fully naked and makes shapes – as random words flash up on a screen.

 

There’s an extra element of humour tonight – in the shape of a vocal 12-year-old audience member – who is noisily appalled by the gay porn segment and then scandalised by the nudity.   “Stop it now” he pleads, as David makes windmills with his penis.

 

“No.  I can’t stop.   I might win an award:” David calls back from the stage.  It’s perfect and very funny.

 

Just when you think you’ve got the joke and David is just sending up every style of showbiz pretension, comes a truly beautiful moment when we get to meet David’s real Dad.

 

When he was dying Simon’s real father, who was a writer, made his own one man show.

 

And we see extracts of it, filmed in 2018.  A beautiful gentle man, facing death when he was too young, he lovingly imparts his wisdom to those he leaves behind.

 

Simon David misses his real Dad, but he is here with us – and father and son are sharing a stage.  It’s very lovely, very heartfelt.  It could have been the whole show.

 

But of course, it can’t end this way.  On go the boots and the skirt and Simon David skips onto the stage again, singing another ridiculous song about himself for the grand finale.