If there’s one thing you can count on James Trickey to do, it is to make you laugh up your dinner over probability formulas.
For accountant-turned-comedian James Trickey, it’s abundantly clear that the probability of “making” it in the world of comedy means absolutely nothing compared to making his audience laugh.
The existential crisis of choosing a life in stand-up over a financially sound career has been a staple subject of the comedy genre. We hear the self-deprecating bits that sprout like grass out of that joke-rich bedrock time and again. It’s an entirely valid means of getting oneself in the perfect punching-up position for any successful set. But what Trickey does is novel, gutsy, and thankfully does not require a working knowledge of math.
Perhaps especially for audience members who’ve shared the experience of throwing out the steady, predictable job for a life in the arts, there’s a hard-earned authenticity in Trickey’s work that comes from his unique flavor of vulnerability. Throughout the show, Trickey scales a palpable emotional arc of coming to terms with his decision to give up accounting and become a comic instead. You get the sense that he’s working through it in real time – as if, every time he does a bit, he’s reliving the panic and then the joy of that decision: to chuck what he’s been told will make him happy in order to pursue what actually does make him happy.
He mentions just enough about his mother to reveal that he loves her deeply but also that he wonders how much she approves of his choice to step into comedy. The most ironic part about the whole show is that it’s crystal clear that Trickey likes doing this – cracking jokes about Calvin Klein underpants, Subway membership cards, and the simple yet divine pleasure of curl-squeezing the life out of a tomato paste tube – with his whole heart. He might be telling a story about wavering through the decision to leave behind his dependable life in accounting, but there’s an underlying spirit to his work that glows. When he starts to explain the mathematical concept of probability, it’s obvious that this man is meant to be on a stage.
At one point, he pointed to an empty seat in the front row (one of the very few left in the theatre) and joked that he’d reserved it for his mother. While the audience laughed, I felt myself wishing his mother was actually there to see what her son becomes when he curls his hands around a mic instead of an ergonomic keyboard.
Trickey should make everyone wonder if they’re really doing what makes them happy. Tonight was my first ever night at the Edinburgh Fringe. He certainly made me feel that way.