Comedians can't resist the lure of the Edinburgh Fringe. Just as they are out they get pulled back in. Whether it's for the money, the acclaim or just getting a warm hand on their entrance a number of previous Edinburgh Comedy Award winners are back this year. Over the last couple of days, almost by accident, I realised I'd seen four previous award winners. And judging by the quality of their shows it's a shame you can't win the award twice.

 

Is comedy a young person's game? If that's the case nobody has told Frank Skinner, who won the award in 1991 when it was sponsored by Perrier. He is now 69 – "even my age is a joke" – and I find it hard to believe he was ever sharper than he is now. He is currently fronting a run of a newish format called Crowd Work (Assembly, five stars), where with two guests he riffs on audience suggestions. It's impro Frank, but not as we know it. 

 

He was joined on this night by Sophie Duker and Brennan Reece who both had to raise their game to compete with Skinner who completely dominated. He seems to have the best anecdote for every occasion – when an audience member mentioned bumping into George Michael in the toilets Frank countered by recalling his stay in George's riverside bath house. When someone arrived late he asked: "Did you come via the strait of Hormuz?" – possibly a gag he does every night but clearly not one he did back in 1991. Skinner remains whipsmart with seemingly perfect instant recall. Unlike me. At the time this reminded me of something but I couldn't think what. Then later it occurred to me – Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned – his unscripted TV show from 25 years ago. Maybe this is another TV show in the making.

 

Around the time of Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned Daniel Kitson (Queens Hall, four stars) also won the Perrier Award, possibly the least surprising win in the history of the awards. He has latterly gone on to make theatre shows but has gently been easing back towards stand-up. Thrum is a bit of both, tightly structured – when he can remember his lines, this was only the second night, no press tickets, I paid – but not about his usual, ageing, loveable characters and their vintage tape recorders found in attics.

 

He is on great form here, that classic mix of arrogance and self-mockery. He explained how he has kept the massive tree for his production of Tree yonks ago. It's costing a bloody fortune in storage but would cost a bloody fortune to dispose of, so he's in tree-based stasis. Elsewhere the theme of this show was the way that everything, everyone is somehow bound together. Whether its a sickly pigeon in a cafe a possum eating a fig, or Kitson himself, wondering how much he should charge for tickets and where his career has gone. There's a pivotal routine about duck rape, however, that did remind me a little too much of an old Stewart Lee routine.

 

He says he no longer wants mainstream success, but then again he is not being offered it now, he adds. It's a bit like saying you don't want to play in the Bundesliga when you are clearly past it. His main message is that he just wants to be kind and wise – but, of course, the most kind and most wise person. Maybe the perfect example of his trademark mix of arrogance and humility.

 

Ahir Shah was the first British-Asian to win the Edinburgh Comedy Award when he triumphed in 2023 and this year's show continues the theme of taking the personal and placing it in a wider philosophical context. In Golden he reflects back on recent years that have been both turbulent and joyful. Along the way he does a lot of ruminating. It's not always funny but it is pretty profound.

 

There's outwardly quotidian material about buying a flat without help from the bank of mum and dad, but there's more to it than meets the eye. He wonders if he is the only thirtysomething in London who isn't a squillionaire. He explains how his neutral middle class accent has worked in his favour. He doesn't quite explain how he got the accent, but says he went to a state school in Wembley where he was considered posh because he was not on free school dinners. Other pupils used to look on enviously at his Penguin.

 

I don't want to go too deeply into detail, you should simply see it for yourselves. He's very funny about his own medical history and depression, he is also very funny about his friend fellow comic Pierre Novellie. Both have been diagnosed as autistic but Shah succinctly illustrates how they have both dealt with it differently. There is sadness here, but it ends on a high. Without coming over all Richard Curtis, Shah concludes, maybe, that love is the most important thing. Not a bad conclusion though I'd suggest laughter is important too, and despite the pregnant pauses there is plenty of that here too.

 

Jordan Brookes claims to be the longest holder of the Edinburgh Comedy Award because he won it before Covid and then it was suspended for a bit. He's back with his latest show, The Part Of You That's Always Screaming (Pleasance, five stars) and as the title suggests, it's another existential howl from deep inside Brookes' angst-ridden soul. And also about a disrupted train journey to Peterborough.

 

The show was slightly disrupted by audience members, not an unusual problem for a late show at the weekend, but Brookes incorporated their verbals pretty seamlessly. He is working to a script but clearly able to improvise – he won the award for an entirely scriptless set. This show takes twists and turns as it snakes along and towards the end really goes down a very dark hole into self-hating physical comedy. Brookes is clearly a fan of the grotesque, someone who recoils at the very thought of his corporeal being (if you like) and things end with a dramatic flourish. Comedy fans will love it, and there's plenty for physical theatre fans too. it reminded me of the experimental Pole Jerzy Grotowski. which is not something you'll see me write every day.

 

I certainly won't be writing that about Gavin Webster, who has never won an Edinburgh Comedy Award but maybe deserves some kind of award if he can prove the title of his latest show, The Last Ever Punk Rocker (Hoots @ Nicolson Square, three stars). The friendly north-eastern comic delivers a show as fast as a three-chord thrash in which he crams in a brief history of punk (was Jesus the first punk? was Genghis Khan?), delivers a music lesson on the different rhythms and beats in music, and explains how at the age of 13 he became a late punk convert after seeing The Great Rock And Roll Swindle on Channel four during a season on banned films.

 

Webster is an engaging, passion presence, talking about a subject that he really cares deeply about. I'd have maybe liked a bit more music or maybe a bit more footage, but instead this is just a talk with the title pasted – Jamie Reid cut-up letters style – on two pieces of paper stuck on the wall behind him. But, hey, I guess that's the spirit of punk rock. Maybe Webster is the last punk rocker after all.