Pedro Leandro’s 2025 Fringe show is one that really stood out to me, partly because I kind of related to the themes and questions that the comedian explores through it: looking at why being perceived as talented and successful is important to him.

It covers other topics too, but this central idea certainly appeals to me, and I feel sure other people will be able to relate.

“If the whole world said, as one: ‘You are the greatest comedian that has ever lived. In fact, you transcend that label. You are a raconteur. An artist. And we actually like that you’re gay’, would that be enough?”

I spoke to him to find out more.

CM: Can we begin by talking about the content of your show? What themes and ideas do you cover? 
PL: ‘Soft Animal’ is a collection of stories and opinions that are loosely held together by the following question: why is being perceived as successful and talented so important to me?

I explore that question through stories about being in the closet, my relationship with my dad, dating and, perhaps most pertinently, my opinions about the musical ‘Hamilton’.

I suppose the main theme that I cover is gay stuff and how it’s shaped me. But I think that reducing it to a show just about my identity would only capture some of what I’m trying to do with it.

Yes, it is a show about identity and its psychological ramifications, but it’s also very much a show about how much I despise the musical ‘Hamilton’.

CM: What made you want to talk about these themes in a comedy show? What made you think it would work? 
PL: Like, I imagine, most debut hours, the very early iterations of ‘Soft Animal’ were an attempt to smush together five minute and ten minute sets and try to order them into some sort of structure with a theme.

So, in many ways, the themes emerged from the material that was already there. I had confidence that the sets themselves were funny and that they had worked when I’d performed them individually, so now it was just about bringing them all together with a central question or thesis.

And the material that was already there did have a distinctive theme: I talked about specific quirks of dating as a gay man, I talked about my propensity for grandeur – or delusions thereof – and I talked about my relationship with my dad.

The connective tissue between all of these ended up being a book that has been on my mind since I’d first read it and has informed a large part of how I view myself as a gay man. It’s called ‘The Velvet Rage‘‘.

CM: That’s interesting – tell us more about the book. 
PL: ‘The Velvet Rage’ was written by the clinical therapist Alan Downs who has treated a lot of gay men throughout his career and wrote the book as a sort of study of the commonalities that he saw emerge throughout the years.

I read it in 2018. It was recommended to me by a teacher of mine called Olly, that I owe a lot to. I was completely blown away by it.

One of the main ideas in the book remained stuck in my mind for years and formed the sort of core question of ‘Soft Animal’: that gay boys will, from a young age, way before they know they’re gay, identify that there is something different about them and that the world is going to reject that difference.

So in order to offset that rejection that they see over the horizon, they achieve as much as possible. They work hard to become the funniest, the cleverest, the richest, the most successful. In the hopes, I suppose, that by the time they come out, people will think “yes, Pedro’s gay, which is disgusting, but at least he speaks Italian”.

CM: It seems like there’s maybe a bit of sadness/past trauma involved. How does it feel to talk publicly about that? 
PL: Laughing at sadness is, for me, part of the healing process. I think that’s the case for many people. So even though it sometimes feels a little vulnerable to do that onstage, I find it super rewarding as well. And audiences in general respond to that.

I think a lot about a rule Mike Birbiglia has for his stand-up: if you’re not telling secrets onstage, who cares? Simon Amstell also talks about how whenever he’s writing and he writes a story or a joke that feels like it may be a bit too personal or a bit too embarrassing, that’s usually the bit that ends up working the best.

I’m not saying that all comedy has to be about these deep, personal things. But, because of the nature of the stand-up that I do, I’ve also found that the stuff that feels vulnerable is the stuff that audiences react to most.

And it’s such a high when you say something like that onstage and people laugh, because it’s a sort of communion. It makes you feel so connected.

CM: What motivates you as a performer? What makes you want to entertain people? 
PL: God. We’re going deep are we? I guess the most honest answer is that I don’t know, because it’s an impulse that I’ve had since I was very young.

Making people laugh or pay attention was super rewarding then so I guess it just stayed embedded in my subconscious that I should keep doing that.

I guess I’m also looking to give people the feeling that I get sometimes when I watch stand-up, a feeling of like deep togetherness and connectedness.

I remember going by myself to see Dylan Moran in the Usher Hall in Edinburgh and I remember distinctly thinking “this is like church”. We’re all gathered in a place and someone is, in some way or another, saying “hey we’re all kind of like this right” and we’re all going “yes, thank Christ you said that!”

Also I’m in it for the money. The money and the fame and the girls.

CM: This is your debut show but I feel pretty sure you have been at the Fringe before. What do you love about it and what made you want to do this show here? 
PL: When I first moved to the UK in 2012, I moved to Edinburgh to study Philosophy at the university. I studied as little Philosophy as possible and instead busied myself with falling in love with Edinburgh and with comedy and performing.

So when even the slightest faintest opportunity presented itself to do my first hour up here it was a complete no-brainer.

I think Edinburgh is the most beautiful city in the world and every day that I get to spend up here fills me with intense, ecstatic, erotic, deeply sexual joy. And the fact that the biggest theatre and comedy festival in the world happens here every year is such a gorgeous coincidence.

Think about it! The Fringe didn’t need to be here! It could’ve been in Reading! Or Charleroi! Have you heard of Charleroi? It’s in Belgium. And it’s truly, vividly, deeply sexually awful. The Fringe could’ve developed there! And that would’ve made me want to go much less. So the city is a big part of why I love the Fringe.

On top of that, I get to watch the best new comedy and theatre in the world for a couple of weeks so that’s pretty exciting.

CM: What will you be doing when you are not performing? 
PL: My accommodation has a bathtub so I’m mainly going to be submerged. And when I’m not submerged I’ll mainly be having lunch, I think.

It’s mostly going to be baths and lunch. And me and my flatmate Olly have a list of morning movies to get through because mornings are the best for movie watching.

CM: Are there other people’s shows that you would like to see? Any recommendations for us? 
PL: Yes, loads! Hopefully I’ll get to catch some of them!

Comedy-wise, I am going to be watching Ayoade Bamgboye’s debut, as well as Cabbage The Clown’s, Rosa Garland’s and many more exciting debut-ers.

I’ll also be going to see Bobby Prezinski, John Tothill and Katie Norris who I think are funnier than everyone. And I’ll obviously be trying to get in to see Tim Key and Jordan Brookes and David Elms. And many more!! I’ve probably forgotten really good important people. Sorry to all those people.

Theatre-wise, I’m going to be going to the Traverse to see ‘The Beautiful Future Is Coming’ with my gorgeous friend James Bradwell and directed by the always excellent Nancy Medina.

I’ll also be going to Summerhall to see ‘Philosophy Of The World’ about a real band called the Shaggs and starring the great great – not to be confused with late great – Nigel Barrett. Also ‘Brainsluts’ at the Pleasance Dome looks wonderful.

Slightly more difficult to categorise – but not that hard: I think it’s mainly movement-based theatre – is ‘Pigs Fly Easy Ryan’ who won the Untapped Award for being cool and weird and satirical and will be on at Underbelly. It’s on at the same time as me, annoyingly, so you’ll have to let me know if it’s good.

That’s it show-wise for now, though I’m sure I will fall in love with a million shows whilst I’m up there.

CM: Can we talk a bit more about your job? How did you get into performing? What did you do to further your career? 
PL: Yes, we can! I’ve been an actor for almost a decade. I was doing lots of student theatre and comedy at uni and I found out that people were going off to drama school and I thought, yes please, I’d like to do that too! So I went to drama school in Bristol and I’ve been a working actor ever since graduating in 2018.

As for what I’ve done to further my career, apart from the obvious which is sleep with as many important people as possible, I’ve tried to be as resourceful as I can and the stand-up is definitely part of that. I figure that the more work I make for myself and the more people see me, the more work I’ll eventually get. Let’s see if it pays off!

CM: You’ve written acclaimed plays as well as performing – do you prefer one to the other?
PL: I like performing better. Writing is super fun and it’s exciting to create something out of nothing but it’s also a lot of responsibility and worry whereas an actor is only responsible for themselves and I love that.

I hate being the boss, I hate being in charge. My favourite thing in the world is the director and writer and producer and designer and all the other grown-ups being huddled in a corner trying to solve a huge problem with the show and me going “good luck with that guys, I hope you find a solution!” as I head for the door.

That said, there’s a huge satisfaction that comes from watching work you’ve written just happen onstage, it feels like magic.

When my first play ‘We Were Having a Perfectly Nice Time’ was first performed by my brilliant brilliant friends Hannah Livingstone and Stephanie Booth – directed by the wonderful Evan Lordan who I work with on everything I can and is directing ‘Soft Animal’ – it made me want to cry with joy.

They all got nominated for awards for it and very deservedly so.

CM: You’ve also done quite a bit of TV/film work – how does that compare to live performance for you? 
PL: It feels super different to live performance.

For me, the main difference is that onstage, whether it’s a play or stand-up, you get a huge rush of adrenaline from going out onstage because your body recognises it as a super scary big deal. Lights down, applause, lights up, off you go.

No stopping, no fleeing, no ifs, no buts. No one’s coming to save you. That’s terrifying but it’s also very galvanising. It means that you will be good simply because you have to be.

And stand-up is that times 100 because it’s just me out there with no props or costumes or anyone else’s words, if they don’t like it, I’m the only target. But if they like it, nothing compares to it!

Onscreen, there’s a lot of pressure mentally because there’s loads of people that have been working super hard and they need you to get it right or they can’t move on and that’s stressful, but my body doesn’t notice that in the same way. So I have to like create the ritual of lights down, applause, lights up so that adrenaline can flood my body.

You have to do so much more work onscreen to get your body to act because mentally you know that you can stop and you can do it again and a second ago you were having a coffee and complaining about the schedule and now you’re pretending to get garrotted on a cliff.

I think that’s why screen actors do crazy things like stay in character for weeks, because it’s genuinely a very difficult thing to like constantly activate and deactivate what you need to be good at acting.

So I find onscreen acting harder work. But it’s also super fun. You get to pretend to be garrotted on a cliff! And you also get treated really nicely and people are always giving you coffee and sausage rolls and making sure your hair looks nice. So that’s pretty good!

CM: What would you say have been the best bits of your career thus far? 
PL: I’ve been super lucky and have done lots of very exciting things that I’ve loved doing. I’ve loved all the stage work I’ve done. Doing classical theatre is loads of fun.

I did ‘A View From The Bridge’ in 2019 in York and I still remember that as one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. Everyone involved was fantastic and you get to do a Miller play every night for your job.

I’ve had great adventures on screen as well. Shooting ‘Domina’ in 2020 was amazing: we shot in Rome and I made friends for life. Being a part of the ‘Strangers Trilogy’ has been really cool too. People really care about those films!

It feels maybe a bit trite to say, but I sort of think this Fringe is possibly the most exciting part of my career so far. ‘Soft Animal’ really feels like an expression of who I am and I feel like it’s the first time that I’ve really been allowed to do that in my career.

I’m excited – and nervous obvs – to see how people react to it and I’m excited to get much better at stand-up by the end of the month.

CM: What aims and ambitions do you have for the future? 
PL: Primarily, I want to keep acting. Hopefully I get to do that and my career keeps building and I get to do increasingly interesting stuff and hopefully I get to do more funny acting in funny stuff.

One of my favourite TV shows ever is ‘Catastrophe’ and if I could work on something like that, I think I could die happy. I want to keep doing theatre too because I love everything about it. I like writing too but I ultimately see it as a means to an end: a way to give myself acting work.

As for stand-up, we’ll see how the next month goes but I think the dream would be to keep making shows and showing them to people around the world.

A mix of everything is kind of the dream! Most of all, I’d like to have a big lovely cottage on a Scottish isle and a beautiful architect husband. So if anyone knows any drop-dead gorgeous architects who are into actors and comedians and maybe with money for a deposit on a big Scottish cottage, give me a call.

CM: What’s coming up next for you after this? 
PL: Once again, a lot of it depends on how August goes, I think it’ll determine the shape that works will take over the next year.

Hopefully more stand-up – I’m taking the show to Lisbon straight after Fringe. I’m also talking to people about a couple of film things, so hopefully those materialise and I can talk about them soon!

Also I imagine some lying down will be in order.

Pedro Leandro performed ‘Soft Animal’ at Pleasance Courtyard at Edinburgh Festival 2025.

LINKS: bigheadcomedy.com