by Ed Fortune
Daniel Foxx is perhaps best known for his presence on short-form video social media service TikTok, where he takes on the role of a personal assistant for a variety of fictional characters, mostly bad guys. His stand-up show at the Edinburgh Fringe, Villain, is not that sort of character work. Instead, it’s an earnest journey into Daniel’s own origin story, growing up as a gay teen in the ’00s. It’s also a show that made us laugh so hard we’re pretty sure we broke a sound barrier.
The titular Villain of the piece refers to the fact that the only LGBTQIA+ icons of Daniel’s youth are the queer-coded villains in Disney cartoons and the like. And also the fact that those characters simply get the best lines and the better songs. Daniel blends his act with a handful of sharply witty, clever songs that add to the momentum of the show, each joke and observation landing, having a little time to breathe, and then more and more are stacked until even the coldest of hearts are charmed by the performer’s wit.
Daniel’s powerful sense of self and tasteful sense of style shines throughout the show. It’s a strong meld of auto-biographical storytelling and queer humour and an amazing insight into what it means to be ambitious, queer and young in the United Kingdom today. It’s profoundly personal at points, heartwarming in other places and delightfully filthy, hard and fast in others. In short, it’s simply brilliant.
Daniel Foxx could very well take over the world with their comedy. And we mean that (for now) in the metaphorical sense, but if he does end up becoming a supervillain, we hope that he remembers how much we loved his 2023 fringe show.
Bring all your friends, queer, straight, and the rest. This a memorable, powerful, and very funny show.
Villain is on at The Pleasance Courtyard until the 27th. Tickets can be found here.
