Seann Walsh at The Stand, Edinburgh: Still funny, despite the darkness

This is the second Seann Walsh show prompted by his love rat infamy after being photographed kissing his Strictly dance partner Katya Jones in 2018. If his first post-Strictly show in 2019 tackled the fallout, Seann Walsh: Is Dead, Happy Now? reveals further complications and also a problematic history.

Walsh is more candid than ever here. There are stories about PTSD, depression, even an anecdote about a suicide attempt. Yet somehow he finds the funny in all of this because what he is best at is not the doing the Paso Doble to the Matrix theme but stand-up comedy.

It is no surprise to hear that Walsh had mental health issues after Strictly. What is a surprise is the revelation that he grew up with a heroin-addicted father. Money was so tight they did not have a dinner table. He chuckles as he pictures himself fronting a travel series with his dad – rather different to the one Jack Whitehall presents with Michael Whitehall.

There is a suggestion that his chaotic lifestyle might be in his genes. He was always disorganised and drank too much. Before Strictly he had been making good money but when the work stopped he found he was broke. Savings had not been part of the gameplan.

Yet while the subject matter tends towards the bleak, there is lots of well-honed humour in the 36-year-old’s full-blooded, highly physical performance. He is a terrific mimic and does an uncanny impression imagining Michael McIntyre delivering an observational riff about chasing the dragon. The lines virtually write themselves but that doesn’t make it any less hilarious.

There is one area that Walsh skirts over. The treatment of his ex-girlfriend, actress Rebecca Humphries, who was very critical of him at the time of their split. There is an exquisite running gag about some of the appliances Humphries took when they broke up, but Walsh resists responding in any detail to her allegations of his mistreatment.

This is not, however, the stand-up equivalent of a self-pitying misery memoir. He concludes by saying he is happy now, not drinking, in a new relationship and enjoying walking his cockapoo. An account of being spotted on a train by a fan while clutching a bag of dog mess is related so vividly you feel you are in the carriage with him.

Walsh’s tale is a story about the hidden side of celebrity and how childhood can cast a shadow over adulthood. “The entire country hated me!” he says of the Strictly scandal. This comic confessional might not win over the entire country, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

The Stand, Edinburgh, to August 28; edfringe.com