Tom Neenan Will Return to Edinburgh Fringe With PORTRAIT OF A TOM AS A YOUNG NEENAN
The BAFTA-nominated writer of THE MASH REPORT brings a new hour on art and identity to the Fringe.
Tom Neenan will return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2026 with Portrait of a Tom as a Young Neenan, a darkly funny and sharply observed new hour about art, identity, body image and the lifelong challenge of trying to become a version of yourself you can actually live with.
A BAFTA-nominated writer, performer and comedian, Neenan is best known as head writer of The Mash Report and for creating and starring in the BBC Radio 4 comedy series The Hauntening. His previous credits also include Spitting Image, The Last Leg, Have I Got News for You and Prince Andrew: The Musical. Now, after several years away from the Fringe, he returns with a new hour in his trademark precise, literary style.
Portrait of a Tom as a Young Neenan is a tightly crafted new hour that blends stand-up, long-form storytelling and the kind of spiralling over-analysis that has become a hallmark of Neenan's comedy.
The show begins with two invitations received in 2024. The first: a destination wedding that unexpectedly stirred old insecurities about appearance, confidence and self-worth. The second: a commission to paint the portrait of an 86-year-old man. What begins as a straightforward commission soon becomes complicated, as artist and sitter enter a strange cycle of revisions, objections and competing ideas about what a portrait should be, raising questions of interpretation and the gap between how people see themselves and how they want to be seen.
As the portrait is repeatedly rejected, Neenan finds himself questioning not only the painting but his own judgement. The process sends Neenan reeling back through past creative failures, abandoned ambitions and a long-running, sometimes difficult, relationship with body image and disordered eating.
The show examines male shame, self-perception, and the pressure to appear fine when you're not, particularly the way men think about their bodies and their relationship with food, and how rarely those conversations are spoken about directly. Portrait of a Tom as a Young Neenan uses one deeply personal story to explore what still makes human creativity distinct.
Through the increasingly fraught process of painting someone else, Neenan reflects on creativity and artistic expression in the age of AI, rooted in his belief that technology cannot and will not replace humans when it comes to artistic endeavour.
Neenan offers a witty and personal defence of art made by people.
Packed with jokes, callbacks and expertly engineered punchlines, Portrait of a Tom as a Young Neenan is an intelligent, moving and deeply funny hour that shifts between the absurd and the heartfelt, covering portraits, perfection and the exhausting business of trying to frame the best versions of ourselves.
Tom Neenan: Portrait of a Tom as a Young Neenan performs 5th to 30th August (no days off) at Underbelly George Square's Bluebell at 15:15.
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