Review Roundup: ALEX EDELMAN: JUST FOR US Opens at Menier Chocolate Factory

Alex Edelman: Just For Us is now playing at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

Just For Us takes the audience through hilarious anecdotes from Alex Edelman's life - his Olympian brother AJ, an unconventional holiday season, and a gorilla that can do sign language - but at its centre is an astonishing and frighteningly relevant story. After a string of anti-Semitic abuse is directed at Edelman online, he decides to covertly attend a gathering of White Nationalists in New York City and comes face to face with the people behind the keyboards. The result is a hair-raising encounter that gives Just For Us its title and final, jaw-dropping twist. The production reunites Edelman with director Adam Brace - who have collaborated since 2014.

Just For Us is at the Menier Chocolate Factory until 26 February.

See what the critics are saying...

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Kat Mokrynski, BroadwayWorld: Ultimately, Edelman is a master at his craft who keeps you laughing, questioning, and empathising throughout the 90-minute show. Just For Us is the type of comedy show that will have you laughing until you snort, nodding along to statements in an eerily similar fashion to those at the White Nationalist meeting, and even questioning your own religious beliefs and exactly how far your empathy can go.

Matt Wolf, London Theatre: Just for Us finds the general in the specific, the politically impassioned in the deeply personal: let's just say that the unfolding mutual admiration society between Edelman and his British public looks unlikely to abate anytime soon.

Nick Curtis, Evening Standard: Edelman is a compelling, super-energetic performer, witheringly smart and laceratingly self-critical, expertly cranking and relaxing the throttle of his hectic narrative. He admits he wants us to like him, and it'd be extremely hard not to.

Sam Marlowe: The Stage: Edelman has been performing the piece with various refinements and modifications since its first outing in New York in 2018, and it is impeccably smooth. Every gesture of artfully channelled manic energy, each wide-eyed personal confidence and sharply observed, economically conveyed character is delivered with consummate ease on a stage bare but for three stools. Its premise may appear provocative, yet it comes with a built-in assumption that we're all on the same side - that we are, like Edelman, the good guys.

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