Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh
The US writer, comedian and actor’s cabaret show includes potent songs about sexuality, identity and police violence
Triple-threat doesn’t begin to describe the abilities of Larry Owens, a writer, singer, comedian, Broadway star and more besides. The Baltimore man originated the main role of Usher in hit musical A Strange Loop and appeared in the TV comedies Abbott Elementary and Search Party, all while honing his musical-comedy craft on the same New York cabaret circuit as recent Edinburgh favourite Cat Cohen. His skills are as blazing as Cohen’s, even if this fringe debut is not the finished article.
It’s arguably more showcase than show, with Owens hurling at us song after song – now angel-voiced, now raising the rafters. This stuff is engineered for whoops and cheers, a response which, if not forthcoming, Owens will openly insist upon. His opening number heralds his uncategorisable individuality: he’s “too white for black people, too poor for rich people”, and – take a deep breath – “too self-actualised to be recognised by the marginalised identities white men made to define me”. Later tracks hymn his transactional relationship with his therapist, or find him pastiching Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X in comic songs about, respectively, the opioid epidemic and having a homophobic mum.
