Award-winning stand up comedian and topical writer for Breaking the News and The News Quiz, Adele Cliff returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a brand-new, daily-written topical comedy show.

Adele Cliff’s Topical Early Late Night Show With Adele Cliff is set to bring all the best parts of an American late-night TV show to Edinburgh in the early evening. This first-of-its-kind topical comedy extravaganza guarantees fresh material every day (from Thursday - Monday throughout August), with a mix of stand-up, sharp news analysis, special guests, and interactive games.

She will be joined on stage by ‘one-woman house band’ Katie Pritchard (Musical Comedy Awards winner as seen on Harry Hill’s V-Club Nite) and chief correspondent Will Davies (‘intelligent, offbeat, and a little mysterious’ A Young(ish) Perspective).

Adele Cliff is a London based stand up comedian from Cambridge. She was the first woman to be named UK Pun Champion and she is the only person to be named amongst Dave’s Funniest Jokes of the Fringe four years running. An accomplished joke writer, Adele has also featured in best jokes lists in The Times, The Telegraph, The Evening Standard, The Scotsman, The Irish Times, The i Newspaper and Metro as well as being nominated for Leicestershire’s Favourite Joke in 2019, and contributing to the Leicester Comedy Festival’s All Puns Blazing joke book. She has also written for BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz, BBC Radio Scotland’s Breaking the News and appeared on BBC Scotland’s Edinburgh Unlocked.

Adele Cliff's Topical Early Late Show with Adele Cliff, 7:20pm at Hoots Potterow (Yurt). Tickets here.

What is the last thing you do before you go onstage (apart from check your flies and/or check your knickers aren't sticking out of your skirt and check for spinach between your teeth)

I do a tongue twister, not a verbal one, I just twist my tongue 5 times.

Then I salt the threshold of the venue to deter slugs, snails and evil spirits.

Then I check my notes, then showtime!

What irritates you?  

I keep getting adverts for investment platforms that want me to buy and sell oil and natural gas. I can’t do that, I have nowhere to keep them. 

What is the most dangerous thing you have ever done?

I once climbed up a pretty large, vertical rock face on a mountain in Greece with no safety equipment and a couple of equally silly friends. I definitely remember looking down at one very high point and thinking “I can’t fall off, I have no travel insurance.”

What is the most stupid thing you have ever done?

I used to be a diver (the flippy type not the fish botherers) and I would regularly throw skills I had no ability to do successfully. Landing flat is a bit painful, but why do a sport that flamboyant if you’re not willing to go for it?

What has surprised you the most during your career in comedy?

I remain consistently surprised by the rush you get when you have a phenomenal gig, it fills up your whole body and mind and it’s incredible. 

What do your parents/children (delete as applicable) think of your job?        

My dad tells me very often that he couldn’t do comedy, which is good. There's a lot of comedians already, I don’t need more competition!

(My children - Will Davies and Katie Pritchard. Who are, I think, the same age as me, are very supportive, talented and in the show this year. What a happy family we are.)

What’s the worst thing about being a comedian?

Forgetting to make up a fake job when a hairdresser and/or taxi driver asks what you do and then having to listen to career advice from someone who has a weapon inches from your neck and/or has you in a little mobile, metal trap.

I think you are very good at what you do (that’s why I’m asking these questions). What do you think of you?

I think I really care about the experience of anyone I do comedy for, and I think that that care comes across. I also think I need to put less stock in the words of fortune cookies, but that’s not something the universe is going to allow to happen for me.

How much do you earn and how much would you like to earn?

Hello HMRC! That’s between me and my accountant, who is also me. I would like to earn enough to pay for a qualified accountant. 

How important is luck in terms of career success – have you had lucky breaks?

Luck plays a role, but it only really works if it’s paired with your own ability to make the most of the opportunities luck might present. Nobody lucked their way onto Live at the Apollo after 50 gigs but people who are already incredibly talented may have some luck in when they happen to be seen by the correct person for it. 

I think some of my luckiest moments have probably been financial, I’ve had several points where I was looking at my finances and not knowing how I was going to afford things and got a last minute job that was exactly the amount I needed to get out of that hole. I got an online advert for Specsavers before the fringe one year and that £2,000 felt like a huge stroke of good luck.

Alan Davies has said that comedians fall into two categories - golfers and self-harmers. The former just get on with life, the latter are tortured artists. Which are you – or do you think you fit into third category?

I'm not sure, I think maybe I’m the caddy. Following golfers around, cheering them on and picking up any club gigs they drop.

Comedy is fairly woven into my whole life I’m not sure if I could ‘get on with life’ without comedy being pretty central to my thinking everyday, I don’t know what category that is but it doesn’t sound like torture to me. 

Who is your favourite person ever and why – not including family or friends or other comedians?

Dr Jane Goodall: what a phenomenal legacy of empathy, kindness, knowledge and purpose she had. To have such a meaningful impact on the world and the creatures in it is a truly worthy calling. 

Do you keep your drawers tidy and if not why not? (please think long and hard about this question, it's to settle an argument with my girlfriend. The future of our relationship could depend on your response).

Drawers are the places that you sweep things into to make the surface above them tidy. 

Once a drawer is closed nobody knows. Tidy? Untidy? It’s Schrodinger's drawer. Which, I hope, means there's a cat in it.  

AND NOW THE OPTIONAL BONUS BALL QUESTION...

How have you grown in the last year?

I haven’t, adults don’t grow. 

Adele Cliff's Topical Early Late Show with Adele Cliff, 7:20pm at Hoots Potterow (Yurt). Tickets here.

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