The transition from Instagram comedy to real life is always going to be a tall order. It’s easy to be funny for sixty seconds. To be funny for sixty minutes? Not so much. Daniel Trengrove and Gabriel Madden are two members of  a batch of 20-something online funny guys whose short form content has no  doubt sprung up on your FYP lately. The common thread in their videos seems to be willingness to expose themselves in public (not literally (at least not yet)), whether that’s lathering themselves with comical buckets of sun cream or asking pensioners for a kiss on the Grassmarket. You may not think this is much of a basis for a Fringe show, but their unshakeable confidence is the hint that they may have a future on the stage.

Enter: Rhino Conservation Erotic Novel, an exercise in cringe-inducing comedy via the medium of PowerPoint. Crammed into a tiny room at the Apex hotel, the audience is greeted by Trengrove, who spends the first portion of the show as a spokesperson for spreading awareness of the least well known, yet most potent, killer of wild rhinos: super gonorrhea. The sheer ridiculousness of the cause is all the more funny when taken so seriously by Trengrove, and while the PowerPoint medium feels like a crutch, it’s a useful one, contrasting his deadpan delivery with colourful memes and distorted dance pop hits blasting from a portable speaker. 

Madden enters the stage, or rather hops out from behind the projector screen, to discuss his raison d’etre: erotic fiction. The audience is submitted to a live reading from his work in progress novel with allusions to a woman having ‘black hair, blue eyes, and curves in all the right places’. E.L James has nothing to fear as of yet, but Madden’s affected awkwardness is a great asset, which he employs to maximum effect. Other setpieces include a throat-singing/finger glove performance and a ‘friendship dance’ that sees the pair clambering onto each other’s backs like two young children trying to impress their parents. 

Rhino Conservation Erotic Novel is a show aimed squarely at the iPhone generation. It refuses to take anything seriously and has only the loosest formal structuring. What carries the piece is the duo’s clear chemistry. Comedically they are totally in sync, able to bring out the best of each other’s performing strengths. With a little fine tuning, these two could easily make a full time transition from screen to stage. 

Rhino Conservation Erotic Novel is at Hoots @ The Apex – Hoot 6 until Mon 31 Aug 2026