Did you know that wombats cum in each other’s faces? They don’t, but this is allegedly the only animal fact Sam Morrison offers throughout his fourth hour, ‘DUCK’, that he has made up. Ducks with spiral vaginas, zebras with seizures, fish that carry their young in their mouths; all evolutionary quirks that he anthroporphises as metaphors for his own life. It’s a novel approach from a distinctive performer and his hyperactive, none-more-camp approach papers over any structural cracks nicely.

‘DUCK’ gives us a whistle stop tour of Morrison’s life, roughly divided into chapters named after a particular animal, whose unique feature Morrison ties into an aspect of his life. These links are occasionally tenuous, but in some – such as the zebras – the allegorical approach works very well and the parallels are clear and vividly illustrated.

Sam sprints through his life, from his seminal attraction to the rotund rabbi of his childhood, which came to be a recognisable pattern in his romantic attachments, into his young adulthood. It’s all done with some sharp, acerbic writing and a lithe, animated stage presence. Even when he’s sitting on a stool, he’s rarely still for more than a few seconds at a time. It’s breakneck stuff, with the rat-a-tat gag rate of a hardened US club comic.

This is apparently a follow-up show to ‘Sugar Daddy’ which Morrison brought to Edinburgh in 2022. This would explain why the death of his older partner feels mentioned in passing, rather than dropped as the ’40 minute-mark’ emotional bomb. As such, there’s a sense that ‘DUCK’ is part of Morrison’s ongoing attempts to process his grief, even if there’s not a hint of self-pity here.

It’s great having your ears pinned back by a performer with whom you weren’t previously familiar and being hurled into their life with the expectation you’ll keep up. It takes a while to adjust to the frenetic pace straight from the off, but it’s a pleasure to acclimatise to some material that’s surprisingly thoughtful when juxtaposed with Morrison’t cheerfully profane style. His theorising on gay men being potentially an evolutionary dead end, for example, would be interesting even without the hilarious observations on the pointlessness of ripped abs that accompany it.

Smart, sharp, and breathlessly funny, Sam Morrison is an effortlessly likeable comedian that would undoubtedly have a broader appeal beyond the largely queer audience here that have already cottoned on to his charms, and who show their appreciation uproariously. His craft and his writing are unarguable.

‘DUCK‘ is at Billiard Room at Gilded Balloon Teviot until Mon 31 Aug 2026