⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
“In 2015, Matty Grey, kids’ comedian, accidentally insulted a child in passing at the Edinburgh Fringe. What happened next would see the brief interaction go viral and Matty’s Fringe turn upside down.”
So ran the blurb for Matty’s never-to-be-performed-again 2025 Edinburgh Fringe show, I Was Almost Killed By an Angry Mob at the Edinburgh Fringe. Reader, what an understatement.
11 years ago, Grey explained, he’d been riding a spectacular year at the Fringe – his Game On show was selling out, and making him one of the faces of August 2014. Every outlet was reporting on the craze, and opportunities were knocking. Flash forward to the months leading up to Fringe 2015, and Australian Matty and his wife are preparing to wager everything they have.
This would be the year they brought Matty’s antipodean hit show ‘Slime Time’ to Edinburgh. It’ll cost a mint in shipping fees to get the gear across, and even more to hire the folks needed to make it run. That would be on top of the pre-Fringe kids’ festival, which Grey had conceived in the months before to capitalise on the misalignment between Scottish school holidays and the Fringe. The Three Sisters had been hot for the idea, and the Facebook event promised thousands of attendees. What could go wrong?
Just about everything, it turns out.
Matty told his story with a comedian’s flair, but the trauma is clearly still fresh in his mind. He also knows better than to tell less show, so he had all the receipts, be they news cuttings or screengrabs.
His gradual reveal of the series of ever-more unfortunate events was jaw-dropping stuff. He really didn’t have to much other than relate his August 2015 in compressed real-time, such was the escalating horror he ran face-first into. It’s too raw for him to make too much fun of, but he still managed to wring some wry chuckles from retrospective observations. Some of the humour that helped make 2015 a little less awful doesn’t quite survive resurrection, but it still helps frame matters a little better.
“Matty told his story with a comedian’s flair, but the trauma is clearly still fresh in his mind. He also knows better than to tell less show, so he had all the receipts, be they news cuttings or screengrabs.”
True, in hindsight, one can see that at least one of the disasters could have been averted through a little more communication, but the main event is a nightmare spun from the age of uninformed social-media ragestorms we have yet to escape. The other misfortunes that crowded in around the same time wouldn’t have seemed as bad in isolation, but since when did bad things like to happen one at a time?
Grey tossed in some welcome jokes along the way to avoid the 50 minutes becoming too maudlin. Quips about his lisp, and some funny footage from days spent zooming around Edinburgh on a segway help lighten things, but I Was Almost Killed By an Angry Mob at the Edinburgh Fringe, was never going to be a crowdpleaser. Fringe shows as self-therapy aren’t new, but Matty may have taken things to a new level.
Still, awful as 2015 was for Matty, I’m not sure there’s quite enough there to make the next Baby Reindeer, let’s hope that sharing the tale for a few nights sent him home with the worst memories left behind.
Show details
Venue: Venue 442: Little Cellar at Laughing Horse @ West Nic Records
(Google Maps)
Date(s): Aug 18 – Aug 24 (7 shows)
Time(s): 7:00 PM (50 min)
Age recommendation: 16+ (Strictly 18+ after 8:00 PM)
Price: Pay What You Can