HERE COMES ALMOST To Play Edinburgh Fringe

New York-based performer and clown Noah Seltzer makes their Edinburgh Festival Fringedebut with Here Comes Almost, a solo comedy clown show introducing audiences to ‘Almost’, a hopelessly hopeful clown, sent by the World Health Organization on one impossible mission: to cure the global loneliness epidemic.

In 2023, theWorld Health Organization identified loneliness as a pressing global health threat. Research in 2025 estimated one in six people worldwide currently feels notable loneliness at any given time, with social isolation increasing the risk of dying prematurely from a range of diseases and conditions and contributing to around 871,000 deaths a year–roughly 100 every hour.

And ‘Almost’ doesn’t think that sounds too good...Here Comes Almost imagines a world where the WHO has responded in the only logical way possible: by dispatching a clown to solve the crisis one room of strangers at a time. Armed with little more than a dragon onesie, blinding optimism and a growing arsenal of questionable methods, ‘Almost’ throws everything they have at one of humanity’s biggest problems. Blending physical comedy, clowning, dance, song and audience interaction, the show follows one clown’s ever more ambitious attempts to make a room full of strangers feela little less alone.

The mission begins simply enough: play some games, make sure everyone feels seen and perhaps even create a brand new "chosen family" from complete strangers. But every failed attempt only convinces ‘Almost’ they're on the verge of a breakthrough. The plans become bigger, the gestures become grander and the optimism more relentless, as one increasingly improbable solution gives way to the next, until the show tips into frenetic, ridiculous chaos. As ‘Almost’ throws everything they have at the impossible task of curing loneliness, the chaos gives way to a moment of stillness, and the realisation that connection might require something neither a game nor a grand gesture can manufacture.

Created in response to Seltzer's own experiences of loneliness, alongside their journey through queerness and self-expression, Here Comes Almost explores the hard to articulate feelings that Seltzer has themselves pondered–about what it means to feel genuinely connected to one another, and what it might take to find our way back to that. In a digitally-obsessed world where connection is constant but often superficial, the lack of authentic connection is widespread. Moreover, the WHO recognised that people who sit outsidesociety's conventions, including LGBTQ+ communities, often face additional barriers to social connection, making loneliness disproportionately common.

Absurd, funny, playful and unexpectedly moving, Here Comes Almost doesn't pretend to have the answer. Instead, it invites audiences to sit with the question of how connection became so elusive, and what we might do, together, to find our way back. 

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