There is a particular Gen Z manipulation of language that I am encountering increasingly at this Fringe. Words are compressed, acronyms appear without explanation and everything is delivered at such speed that, unless you are completely tuned into the vocabulary, the joke can be halfway across Edinburgh before you have worked out where it started.
Jess Fuchs’s Feral occasionally suffers from this. At one point she references being a “STEM woman”. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, apparently. Perhaps everybody else knew. I didn’t. Sometimes Fuchs is simply a little too clever for her own good, or perhaps too determined to demonstrate how clever the language can be.
Which is a shame, because when she allows herself room to breathe, Fuchs is very funny indeed.
Much of Feral revolves around a disastrous trip to Ireland, including a visit to the Titanic museum before an accident in which she broke her coccyx. Inevitably, James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic gets involved. Curiously, I had come almost directly from Rosie Jones, who was also referencing Titanic. Is there some secret comedians’ board where everyone agrees what they are going to vibe on at this year’s Fringe? Apparently, 2026 is the year the ship goes down again.
Fuchs is particularly good when she abandons the dense language and engages directly with her audience. Her crowd work is excellent.
Performing within one of the Pleasance’s confined arched vaults, she has discovered a wonderfully simple device. There is a fan. We all want the fan. Anyone prepared to talk to Fuchs properly gets the fan turned towards them.
Suddenly, rather than desperately avoiding eye contact with a crowd-working comedian, people have an incentive to open up. Fuchs exploits it beautifully. It is a tiny piece of theatrical engineering, using the heat and confinement of the room to change the relationship between performer and audience.
Interestingly, this is where Feral becomes at its most inclusive. The rapid contemporary vocabulary can occasionally leave sections of the audience behind, while Fuchs’s crowd work does precisely the opposite. Here she is warm, quick, instinctive and extremely good at reading people.
There is plenty to enjoy in Feral. Fuchs is intelligent, energetic and unquestionably funny. I just occasionally wished she would trust the material enough to give it a little more space.
After all, when she stops trying to outrun us, Jess Fuchs is very good company indeed.
Playing until August 30th 2026, https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2026JESSFUC
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 16th August 2026
North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating:
Running time – 1hr