★★★★
1290.5 Steps to Autistic Success – Kittenageddon (Sidequests and Buffering) is AuDHD comedian Stags Woodward’s latest Edinburgh fringe offering. It is a joyous, low-key gig in which Stags appears very much as himself, sharing funny anecdotes and interests, home videos of things he likes, and reflections on his neurodivergent experiences.
The spirit of the show was best captured when Stags talked about how it’s designed with autistic audiences in mind, the kind of performance he’d want to watch himself. A lot of media about autistic people is packaged for a neurotypical audience or has an angle of advocacy and awareness raising – in other words, outward facing. Though he made sure to bring the audience along with him, for example explaining masking to those unfamiliar with the term, the show was more a demonstration of an AuDHD mind than an explanation or justification of it. Stags invited us into his world, filled with the many joys of bees pollinating lavender, the fuchsia hue of a red light on a green traffic cone, and the beauty of a car taillight he’d filmed reflecting in a roadside puddle. This was one of the strongest and most impactful elements of the show, the sharing of an unmasked neurodivergent self that didn’t feel the need to justify itself.
In this vein, the most accurate component of Woodward’s self-admittedly lengthy title is its second subtitle, “sidequests and buffering”. Much of the runtime was taken up with tangential anecdotes and sudden thoughts. This never veered into tiresome irrelevance but rather came across as the joyfully liberated workings of a neurodivergent mind. The main title itself implies a central conceit surrounding a list of ‘steps for autistic success’ which never manifests. This created some sense of unsatiated anticipation across the show, especially as the first half was taken up with extemporisations on a seemingly preliminary list of tongue-in-cheek disclaimers. The number 1290.5 was discussed, alongside how Stags brings it into his life as a time or distance for various challenges, but this was an aspect of the show that could have been laid out and explored more thoroughly.
Nonetheless, the show’s wayward, unscripted quality was pulled off with style thanks to Stag’s energetic and charismatic stage presence, and he held the room with ease for the full length of the performance. Much of the fringe is about putting yourself at the whim of a performer for an hour or so and hoping for the best, and it can certainly be said that Stags is a safe pair of hands to be in.
1290.5 Steps to Autistic Success – Kittenageddon (Sidequests and Buffering) is on at Las Vegas at Laughing Horse @ City Cafe until August 24th.
