Escape

Andrew O’Neill targets the oppressive safety of beige culture with the zeal of an occultist holding an electric guitar. The show takes the premise of fleeing suburban conformity, specifically Wallington in South London, and broadens it into an argument for direct action, solarpunk futures, and putting superglue in Airbnb key safes.

Rather than catering to cozy political consensus, the set picks fights with soft targets and hard dogmas alike. O’Neill mocks chemtrails and conspiracy theories as lazy substitutes for organized dissent, saves particular venom for George Ezra, and argues that neurodivergent outsiders will be the ones to patch up civil society.

Developed at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe at Monkey Barrel before touring UK rooms like Camden’s Black Heart and Hull’s Polar Bear Club through 2026, the performance caught O’Neill between screen work on Good Omens and a companion lecture show on the history of punk.

Critical reaction split along predictable lines. Chortle found the hour patchy and discordant despite the outsider perspective, while other fringe reviewers embraced the uneven collision of anarchist agitprop, personal grief over an eccentric father, and off-kilter stand-up.