Leo Reich knows the typical comedian backstory. There’s the kid who played the class clown growing up. The misfit who used jokes to get through childhood trauma. But Reich was none of these. “I’m not a good entertainer, I don’t think,” he says, sipping on a black coffee in the bar of the Soho Theatre. “I so wish I was one of the people who’s like” – he puts on a low, croaky voice – “‘As soon as I came out of the womb, people were laughing, laughing, laughing, I was so funny’”. But no one ever told him he was funny. Nor did they suggest he should do stand-up. In fact, “I don’t think I made a single person laugh until I was 20.”
But, for Reich, 20 really wasn’t that long ago – and since then, he’s made a lot of people laugh. At 24, he’s leading a pack of Gen Z comedians arriving on the stand-up scene. In August, his show Literally Who Cares!? became one of the biggest hits of the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe, earning him a Best Newcomer nom at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and rave reviews from critics. Next week, he plays Hackney’s cavernous EartH, his biggest show to date. To see him live is to witness a man self-obsessed. His is a shtick rooted in solipsism. In lycra and dramatic, Black Swan-esque eye make-up, he speaks of only caring about himself – partly because social media has trained him to, and partly because the world his generation has inherited is a hellfire.
