There are few things more tedious, they say, than listening to the contents of someone else’s dreams. Jin Hao Li seems to have taken that as a challenge. His rookie fringe set is structured around a trio of nightmares he had, and some happier reveries too. And even when dreams aren’t the subject of Swimming in a Submarine, there’s a certain dream logic at play – or at least, we’re lulled into thinking so by the China-born Li’s gentle cadences and fuzzy, offbeat humour.
This is an arresting debut then, staking out space where soft surrealism meets the autobiographical standup of a man who went from the Singaporean army to an English degree at St Andrews uni. He traces that trajectory here, but in the telling, it routes him via a romance between an insect and an arachnid, a rap from the perspective of an apple, and the loss of his capacity to pronounce the letter Z. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that a man taught by the military that “your gun is your wife!” should find it natural to flit between the everyday and the bizarre.
I wonder whether these opposing modes could strike brighter sparks off one another. That might help Swimming in a Submarine build up more of a head of steam. In the meantime, this is comedy less as rollercoaster, more as hammock – albeit one that Li rocks at an irregular rhythm. Soothing meets unsettling, then, as real-world experiences of racism clash with whimsy about angler fish and joining the Japanese yakuza. Perhaps because there are first-rate jokes too, it remains a pleasure to join Li as he weaves these strands together, the self-satisfied smile on his lips of a man who knows more than we do about what he’s up to, and is savouring its strategic disclosure. Not quite the dream debut, then – but not far off.
• At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 25 August
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