Edinburgh Fringe 2026
Jeromaia Detto: Giuseppe’s Love Quest
Jeromaia Detto
Genre: character comedy, Clown, Comedy
Venue: Buttercup at Underbelly, George Square
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Giuseppe has never experienced love. He doesn’t know what it looks like, or what it feels like. This story is his journey of finding out what love really is.
Review
Jeromaia Detto plays Giuseppe, a stereotypical Italian beach boy, who has never felt love. He begins the show by doing what he understands to be an act of love – giving roses. He goes on to ask the audience if they’ve ever experienced love. Most of the audience members respond positively. Giuseppe sighs. He wants to feel this feeling.
Detto is charming, smart and has a disarming presence. It was actually his wonderful smile in the poster that brought me to his show. He welcomes you into the room and interacts with you with the kind of warmth that makes you eager to talk to him. You’d want him to ask you if you’ve ever experienced love or a hug or a kiss. He seems like the person you’d want to sit and talk to for hours.
The show is about Giuseppe’s journey of finding love. In his own broken way, he tries to understand what love feels like. His markers for it, a hug and a kiss are broken down by the audience members and Giuseppe tries his best to understand it. Someone says a hug feels comfortable, and Giuseppe asks if that’s like a Toyota Prius. Another time someone says a kiss feels all-encompassing, and Giuseppe asks “like Tik-Tok?”. Detto’s most valuable skill is quick wit, and that’s what keeps us at the edge of our seats eager to know what’s happening next? We’re eager for him to fill our hearts with love in this quest.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen. The show ends with a very simplistic portrayal of love, as Giuseppe completes his quest with the help of the audience. “What is love?” is a question that many people spend a lifetime understanding, and Giuseppe reaching a simple conclusion felt like we were robbed of a great moment of connection.
I found myself wondering why Detto chose to become Giuseppe? Is there something about the Italian stereotype that adds to a love quest? Behind that charming smile and great audience interaction, was a Jeromaia Detto who felt a little inaccessible. One of my favourite moments of the show, which I believe would never happen again, was when he pauses the entire show and takes us outside to see the solar eclipse. We go outside and he realises that the buildings are covering the sun, and we won’t be able to see it. He asked when the next one was and sadly concluded, “maybe in 2090”. In this moment, I could see Detto within Giuseppe and it made the character of Giuseppe so rich. But once we went back inside and he went back to the script, we lost our access to him.
During my initial days of clowning, my teacher once told me that I use my smile to hide my emotions. At times, I wondered if Detto was doing something similar that day. We yearned for a large journey into love, and he showed us only one side of it.
Giuseppe’s Love Quest is a piece that has immense potential to melt your heart and leave you open-hearted, but it’s not quite there yet. Can Detto bring more vulnerability and uncertainty into the performance? I haven’t come across another show at this Fringe where a man is looking for love and I think it’s important for men to be talking and making work about love.
One of the other moments that stood out for me was when Giuseppe learned how to hug from an audience member. It’s his first hug. A man from the crowd stands up and goes on to hug him. That moment could’ve been the entire show. I hope Giuseppe’s Love Quest becomes Detto’s Love Quest as well and he continues to explore great depths within this theme.
