Tom Neenan: Portrait of a Tom as a Young Neenan at Underbelly George Square

Tom Neenan, BAFTA-nominated writer and comedian best known as head writer of The Mash Report and creator of The Hauntening, returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a new hour blending stand-up, long-form storytelling and spiralling over-analysis. The show draws on two 2024 invitations — a destination wedding and a commission to paint an 86-year-old man's portrait — to explore self-perception, body image, disordered eating, and male shame. As the portrait is repeatedly rejected, Neenan reflects on past creative failures, artistic expression in the age of AI, and the gap between how people see themselves and how they want to be seen. The hour shifts between the absurd and the heartfelt, packed with jokes, callbacks and expertly engineered punchlines.