Jin Hao Li: Swimming in a Submarine review – soothing meets unsettling in fringe comedy debut

There are few things more tedious, they say, than listening to the contents of someone else’s dreams. Jin Hao Li seems to have taken that as a challenge. His rookie fringe set is structured around a trio of nightmares he had, and some happier reveries too. And even when dreams aren’t the subject of Swimming in a Submarine, there’s a certain dream logic at play – or at least, we’re lulled into thinking so by the China-born Li’s gentle cadences and fuzzy, offbeat humour.

This is an arresting debut then, staking out space where soft surrealism meets the autobiographical standup of a man who went from the Singaporean army to an English degree at St Andrews uni. He traces that trajectory here, but in the telling, it routes him via a romance between an insect and an arachnid, a rap from the perspective of an apple, and the loss of his capacity to pronounce the letter Z. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that a man taught by the military that “your gun is your wife!” should find it natural to flit between the everyday and the bizarre.

I wonder whether these opposing modes could strike brighter sparks off one another. That might help Swimming in a Submarine build up more of a head of steam. In the meantime, this is comedy less as rollercoaster, more as hammock – albeit one that Li rocks at an irregular rhythm. Soothing meets unsettling, then, as real-world experiences of racism clash with whimsy about angler fish and joining the Japanese yakuza. Perhaps because there are first-rate jokes too, it remains a pleasure to join Li as he weaves these strands together, the self-satisfied smile on his lips of a man who knows more than we do about what he’s up to, and is savouring its strategic disclosure. Not quite the dream debut, then – but not far off.

• At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh , until 25 August
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