Photo credit: Charlie Ralph

Post by @nataliagresty

Seen by Natalia at Edinburgh Festival Fringe on the 9th of August 2026

⭐⭐⭐⭐ A hilarious lowdown of creepy screenshots

One of the hottest Fringe shows this year – a fully sold out run with newly added dates gone before you blink twice – is a one-woman piece by Harriet Richardson, a multidisciplinary performance artist, who opens by humbly admitting she’s not a comedian nor an actress and has never staged a show before. None of which are necessary, turns out; Richardson’s content is enough to crack up the crowd just about every sentence and send relatable shivers down our spines. 

Creep is essentially an inside story of Richardson’s obsession with an unnamed male comedian, and the screenshots of everything (including their sporadic communication) that followed: finding his eBay account, trying to match with him on the exclusive dating app Raya and coming across multiple A-list celebrities whilst on there, DMing a local priest, showing her therapist unflattering pictures of her receiving various packages in the months after her breakup. Whoever thought they were alone in having received problematic messages from [usually older] men, or being alone in their online stalking tendencies with new romantic prospects will leave resting deeply assured they’re very much not the only one. 

Richardson has already stirred the internet waters with a number of bold pieces, which she incorporates into the show: she unveils the behind the scenes of her tattoo Temporary – consisting of first names of mothers of all the men she’d slept with – and the way she found them all (let’s just credit a certain service provider found on Taskmaster). She also shows us snapshots of her 2024 piece 100 Dates where she went on 100 5-minute Zoom dates on Valentine’s day with anyone who was up for it. Following the footsteps of female provocative artists, such as Marina Abramović and Tracey Emin, Richardson adds a strong comedic element to her work and giggles as she shows us the countless men that have sent their unsolicited comments and opinions her way. It’s a beautifully brutal yet tenderly vulnerable exposé of an online fight back against creeps that’ve had it way too easy for way too long.

Aug 5th-30th at 19:00 (more shows being added)
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Below at Pleasance Courtyard
Tickets and info: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/harriet-richardson-creep 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hatsrichardson