EDINBURGH 2026: Review: MARTY GLEESON: DOG EAR, Pleasance Courtyard, Bunker One

Marty Gleeson arrives at the Edinburgh Fringe with a debut hour which feels as curious, unconventional and quietly assured as its title suggests. Dog Ear is an exploration of anxiety, absurd wonder, superstition and the increasingly bizarre world around us, delivered with glorious deadpan energy.

Sold out on a Friday night, Gleeson has clearly already found an audience eager to spend an hour in her comedy. Her predictions are brilliantly absurb about the extinction of pasta, to the peculiarities of how we will communicate with babies and the increase of hive mind mentality, all delivered in a self assured tone. 

There is an intriguing playfulness to Gleeson’s thinking, pulling the audience along to her way of thinking. With a background in art, she finds fascination in the contrast between anatomically correct art and recklessly distorted proportionsm on the same page, while also appreciating the beauty of artwork which has not been presented in a pristine state, embracing imperfection. 

She reminiscences about a time when life simply involved wheeling a television into a room to watch Cool Runnings, while her observations on the 'usefulness' of information desks are brilliant. She further recommends finding your own niche helpful areas of yoga videos in terms of self help. She further ponders advice about going into nature and hugging trees, which becomes an opportunity for Gleeson to question the well meaning clichés, which are so often offered as solutions to modern anxiety. A section on magpies provides one of the show’s particular highlights, addressing superstitions.

Gleeson is refreshingly forthright about the language used to describe women in comedy. Her challenge to a careless comedy host who once called her ‘adorable’ is particularly effective, highlighting how first impressions and welcoming descriptions are important, wih carelessness diminishing, rather than celebrating a comedian’s skill. 

Dog Ear is directed by Abby Wambaugh, whose playfulness and ethos can be seen in the writing, which is an excellent pairing, as Gleeson's voice in comedy feels both necessary and distinctive. Dog Ear is an impressively assured introduction to a comedian who is sharp, intelligent, wonderfully funny and curious.

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