A review of Harvey Cobb: Pink Boots and an Alcoholic Sock Puppet, Fringe 2026

I had no idea what to expect with this show, but given the title, I knew it’d be quite weird!

This show is certainly self aware in it’s weirdness and there were members of the audience getting a really good laugh out of the absurdity. Cobb’s charisma and stage presence made the oddness more enjoyable. This show is different, but there is definitely an audience for it!

Chuckles on a Weekday Evening

The show starts with some decent stand up that got some good chuckles. Cobb pointed out the more chill audience vibes on an early weekday evening, and he worked with it well.  

There were lots of pink welly boots on stage, and I appreciated the matching pink boot earrings Cobb had. He certainly leaned into the visual of half of the show’s title. The sock puppet part doesn’t show up until a while later. 

He went on to do some tricks while deliberately taking the piss. It was done well enough that it was evident that the fumbles were intentional for comedic effect. This meant the chuckles and laughs from the crowd continued.  

Will There Be Juggling? (Yes)

Jokes go on about how how he should do some juggling. Thankfully he does and I did enjoy it. It was the most traditionally circus part of this show. 

There was an anti-climactic ending to a trick involving the pink welly boots that was really funny, me and other audience members got a good laugh from it. 

There is a skill to making it look like you don’t know what you’re doing when you actually do, Cobb has figured this skill out!

Mr Sock

There is plenty of self deprecating humour in this show, I think it worked well. Cobb’s charisma resulted in some good crowd work (particularly relating to Mr Sock) that resulted in cheerful audience laughter.  

To me personally, some of the deliberate fumbling felt like padding out time. But other audience members seemed to enjoy it!

There was a decent chunk of the audience that really enjoyed the absurdity and laughed quite a lot. The rest had more relaxed chuckles.

There is good stuff in this show, Cobb clearly has stage presence and charisma. This show is very weird, intentionally so. As witnessed when I attended, there is an audience who will really enjoy this!