A small man with goggle eyes walks onto the stage without fanfare and begins to play the piano. Eventually he turns to us and says “This is a true story. Only the facts have changed.” I relax. This guy knows what he’s doing.

Michael Workman has created something special here. Something odd, unique and wonderful. Humans are Beautiful will live in your head for days afterwards. I’ve never seen a stand-up show that makes the audience laugh and cry and wonder in equal measure. I hesitate to even call it comedy. Oh it’s funny as hell but, bizarrely, you don’t really notice. Laughs grow from it organically, like weeds, without the audience thinking much about them. Workman leaves us feeling like we’ve just seen a magic trick. We’re not sure how it worked (or even what it was) but damn it was good.

Humans are Beautiful is a story, and like all good stories, it gets under your skin. Workman takes us on a journey through a land of cities, war, graves and poppy fields. Along the way we meet a dog named Dog and a recreational gravedigger named Penny. This is imagination that fizzes and bubbles, often launching off on strange tangents or poetic observations. But it’s the language that really gets me. Workman speaks well. That sounds simple, but it isn’t. He doesn’t “umm” and “ahh”. He doesn’t stutter or rush. He speaks in sentences, complete sentences, with a self-assuredness that makes the performance slightly hypnotic. After a while you find yourself just enjoying his voice.

Workman (who won the RAW comedy award in 2009) is also an English Literature major. And it shows. His imagery is striking. Sometimes the poetry flies so thick and fast that it doesn’t register until a few seconds after the delivery. This is smart comedy without pretentiousness. It’s worth the price of admission alone to see Workman’s drawing of his Happy Place (I’m not giving too much away to say it includes a unicorn named Trevor).

Humans are Beautiful will be one of the standout shows of the festival.  People need to go and see Michael Workman. Not just so they can say “I knew him when…” but because it really is a treat to watch something funny, unique and kind of beautiful.