Harriet Richardson: Creep at Edinburgh Fringe 2026 ★★★½

★★★½ Harriet Richardson: Creep | Pleasance Courtyard

Part stand-up, part performance art, Harriet Richardson’s debut Fringe show is essentially a funny story about obsession which ultimately pulls its punches.

It’s fair to say this show is finding its audience – the run has pretty much sold out, including extra dates in bigger spaces. Richardson definitely deserves the attention, her confident delivery belying the fact that this is her first Edinburgh Fringe hour. Creep has evolved out of a 2024 project which saw her go on 100 online dates in one day. In the aftermath, a TV personality slid into her DM’s asking how he could get one of those dates, swiftly followed by a dick pic. And so, and obsession began.

Creep is the story, ostensibly, of a celebrity creep – though, for legal reasons, Richardson can’t name the person in question, only going so far as to reveal that he was a Taskmaster contestant. Richardson’s story is, post-Me Too, one that is depressingly familiar – the novelty, here, being that she is as interested in unpacking her own obsession and self-destruction as that of the unnamed TV star.

Fans of Adam Buxton or Dave Gorman (and countless others) will recognise the device of illustrating a show with screenshots of online comments and DM’s, used extensively here – though with the nice (and itself creepy) addition of a voice note from the creep’s agent. It’s a well-trodden path for a reason, and Richardson mines some big laughs with casual ease.

The elephant in the room, though, is the mysterious man. By not naming him, Richardson pleases not just the lawyers but also the man himself – here is a show about him, without naming and shaming him. It’s not clear whether Richardson thinks he crossed a line into predatory or abusive behaviour – if he did, surely the police should be contacted. If not, are these not the exchanges of two consenting adults being projected onto a screen in front of hundreds of (paying) voyeurs? There is, of course, room for nuance – he is an older, more experienced (and presumably influential) man in a cutthroat industry – but this isn’t really unpacked.

The far more interesting material relates to Richardson’s own obsessions and shame, which deserves more space to breathe away from the looming phallic shadow of the unnamed creepy guy. A segue into a previous performance art work, Temporary, is perhaps the most compelling sequence, and hints at a deep well of material for future shows.

Stuart Wilson

I am Joint Editor at To Do List. I like: nice pubs, film marathons, not doing real marathons, bad comedy, plays/musicals with shorter second halves, and the Oxford comma.

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