Mark Watson: Flaws @ Pleasance

Having made his first Fringe appearance ten years ago, Mark Watson is an Edinburgh veteran. This year he’s back with a personal and brilliantly funny look at how we perceive ourselves, and the problems it can bring.

Watson speeds through anecdotes in his hyperactive style, with a frank but light-hearted touch that stops the show from ever getting too dark. Just as the subject matter (largely, the depressed feelings and anxiety he has struggled with) seems to be turning a little more worrying, we are treated to a chaotic recreation of a children’s movie premiere, complete with balloons and infuriating looped theme music.

What makes Flaws so successful is the sense of recognition; “What if I’m actually weird?” asks Watson. And let’s face it, in our attempts to navigate our way through emotions and social interactions, we’ve all asked ourselves similar questions at some point. Whether or not they mirror our own, we can relate to Watson’s insecurities, and many of us share the same fear that maybe we haven’t quite achieved everything we could have by a certain point in our lives. The show validates these niggling thoughts, and consoles us with an hour of non-stop laughter and a final, uplifting assessment: “Even if I’m not the best human... I’m still a human.”