The lights go down signalling the start of the show, but Rob Auton is not on stage. Members of the crowd begin to glance around, especially when, from the back of the room, a rich North Yorkshire voice starts chanting: “We want Rob!” The audience picks up the chant. One woman stamps her feet, others join in. And then, Auton extracts himself from the crowd and takes his place on stage.
The Crowd Show is comedian Auton’s post-pandemic return to the Edinburgh fringe and while he began writing it before we’d ever heard of Covid-19, our collective time in isolation gave the concept fresh significance. “I wanted to speak about people being together. It took on a whole new life when we weren’t allowed to do it any more,” Auton says. “This experience of being at the fringe has made me realise the scale of what we’ve been through.”
