POWERPOINT

The Chocolate Factory
★★★☆☆
Somebody must have been playing games with Stephen Colfer. Because, without doing anything wrong, he was startled one day to discover his online videogame community and real life plans were crashing together, with calamitous results. For this to happen once, upending an Edinburgh comedy show, would be a misfortune. But twice is fishy.

This witty, short stand-up lecture brings us on a playthrough performance of a rude awakening, told through a lively powerpoint presentation while aping the structure of a true-crime podcast: “That should have been the end. But it wasn’t.” An arch mystery created from a relatively slight story, the amiable Colfer makes breezy gags while sleuthing through evidence. What he actually exposes, more affectingly, is the void that videogames (or podcasts) fill, a sense of connection that is ultimately isolating. Fastened here to his lectern and gadgetry, Colfer steps away from it only briefly, but it makes that swindle easier to see.

Runs as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival until Thursday, September 12th