Matt is many Fringe-goers automatic pick, year after year, with reliably affable political satire.  He doesn’t really do cruel but he does do funny and his recent health scare has only endeared him more to the political cognoscenti. So, on a wet Wednesday in one of the harder nights to fill a house, mid-festival, he does so again.

Maybe it’s the fact that Andy Burnham is a bit beige. Maybe it’s because you can only trump Trump so often.  Maybe it’s because the Clown King in chief is off making millions on his Etonian book tours.  Maybe it’s because Sturgeon is holed up in London (‘Like Osama Bin Laden being in Manhattan’). Or all of these combined, but Forde just seems a bit off his game. The material is good. It’s fine. Really it is. But it’s not searing.

He gently lampoons (through the art of impersonation) Burnham, Starmer, Badenoch, Polanski, Farage – the latter three not overly impressively as impersonations go.

Starmer, Sturgeon, Trump, Boris and Ange Raynor all come in for scrutiny, with the imagined meeting of Rayner (as the 17th UK PM in 10 years) meeting Trump (and the only politician on the planet capable of bamboozling him – she’s direct and Northern after all) the most effective routine of the political material.

But his best is actually his non-political stuff.  The impact of his surgery and the means of rejuvenating his erectile capabilities makes for a great section, with a few winces amongst the giggles, and his lampooning of Stevie Clarke are both highlights.

His SNP section gets the crowd going. Forde loves Scotland, this is very clear, and he knows Scotland has been good for him, but he needs to spend a bit more time on his Nicola and Peter voices to make this section really zing, nonetheless the audience love it.

Why it’s called ‘Project Holy Moly’ is anyone’s guess.  Gratuitous marketing may be the answer.

He’s great. He’s lovable. He might be a national treasure even.  But this show is no more than pass marks.

‘Project Holy Moly‘ is at Pleasance Courtyard – Beyond until Sun 31 Aug 2026