Well that was a Fringe that was. I’ve done the number crunching and it makes interesting reading. To me anyway. I saw 51 shows. I reviewed 17 for the Standard, 18 for beyond the joke. Apologies for not seeing more, but this was the first year I’ve ever been priced out of staying for the full Fringe. Thanks Oasis and Edinburgh City Council, who, by common consent between them royally screwed up the rental market.
Anyway, I could blather on about the weather, the themes and the pad thai, but without further ado I’m going to write a few lines on as many of the other shows as I can manage. They put all that work into their shows, the least I can do is acknowledge it.
Lily Blumkin (two stars) looked good on paper, with a track record of working on the Daily Show, but to paraphrase the old football gag, she was playing onstage. Her character-based show was cleverly based on her having to clear out her childhood possessions. Each one prompted a memory of friends and occasions which she acted out. But the staging just didn’t work. Every time she built momentum there was a pause for a costume change and the energy left the room. Strong writing was drowned out by the lulls.
I’d been meaning to see Ali Brice (three stars) for about ten years. I finally made it to his show where he played Eric Meat, an eccentric desk jockey clinging to his career by his fingertips. If the show wasn’t largely improvised it certainly felt like it, with Brice doing a lot of crowdwork and depending on the room to give him something back. On the afternoon I was in it didn’t quite take flight, but Brice is a clever, offbeat talent with an appealing penchant for taking risks onstage. I won’t leave it another decade before I see him again.
I’d always assumed Liam Withnail (four stars) was a Scottish stand-up, but his excellent show told the story of how he grew up in Essex and fled to Scotland to reinvent himself. It was a heck of a rollercoaster ride, taking in addiction, romance and much more, which kept the audience involved and on the edge of their seats right up to the finale.
Andrew O’Neill (four stars) had a couple of distinct shows at the Fringe this year. I opted for his late night History Of Punk show, which was part-comedy, part-lecture, part-gig, with the chairs removed and the audience encouraged to get up and pogo to The Damned at the end. I’d have liked more about the UK origins of punk, but O’Neill certainly knows his stuff, from the MC5 to Rancid. He’s a good guitarist too. And funny. And enthusiastic.
I saw Paul Campbell’s passionate paean to Somerfield supermarket (four stars, pictured below) as I was judging the Malcolm Hardee Awards. He went on to win one for this show that laid bare his passion for absolutely anything to do with his favourite shop. It’s not the kind of set you’ll be seeing at Live at the Apollo but very much in the spirit of the do-anything-at-the-Fringe and the kind of thing that should be encouraged. Yes, of course it was nerdy, what did you think?
Nate Kitch (three stars) was another Hardee contender, with his show that was kind of about nothing and also about everything. He wandered around the small stage, toyed with his hat, talked about art and generally pootled. At his best I thought he had an air of early Tim Key about him. Not a great show but one that bemused a significant slice of the crowd, which is always a good sign for me. I think he’s on the path to something very good.
There was less about ADHD than last year at this year’s Fringe, but Edy Hurst’s (three stars) Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Himself might just be the best stage representation of the ADHD mind that I’ve ever seen, as Hurst skitted around from thoughts about 17th Century witch trials to his love for the Venga Boys. There were props and books and knockabout bits. The trouble was it didn’t quite hang together for. I’d seen this as a work in progress online last year and tbh this still felt like a work in progress. Definitely something bubbling away in that cauldron but Hurst still needs to dig it out.
The Gilded Balloon marked its 40th birthday this year with some nice scoops. There was Rosie O’Donnell and Alan Davies in the first week and towards the end Smack the Pony (four stars, pictured top) reunited for a nostalgic chinwag with Kirsty Wark. Sally Phillips, Doon Mackichan and Fiona Allen have, of course, still got it, and even got up and did some material to prove it. A law should be passed to make TV give them a new series pronto.
Sketch show Ada & Bron (four stars) – Ada Player and Bron Waugh and pianist Ed Lyness – was nominated for Best Newcomer and they definitely had something in their fast paced late night hour of loosely interlinked quickfire sketches featuring bland suburban couples to Meatloaf-loving rockers. TV success in some form surely beckons.
I was one of the judges at this year’s So You Think You’re Funny? final and was impressed by all of the acts but one in particular. There is usually a heated debate over the winner but this year the decision was easy. Madeleine Brettingham was the unanimous winner with her fully-formed ‘lady geezer’ stage persona. The writing was so tight and gag-packed it was a very quick meeting.
Reviewer Claire Smith had been raving about Molly McGuinness (four stars, pictured below) when she reviewed her debut show for BTJ and when McGuinness was shortlisted for Best Newcomer I checked her out too and couldn’t agree more. It’s easy to say that McGuinness slips neatly into a lineage that takes in Victoria Wood and Sophie Willan but she also brings something new, something punkier, to the party. She had a great Edinburgh and I expect greater things from her in the future.
Another name that gets bandied around in knowing comedy circles is Johnny White Really Really (four stars). His show started at 12.30 – lunchtime – which seemed a little too early but was perfect for his lo-fi storytelling, He has an effortless way of drawing the audience in with tales from his life which start off sounding real but gradually spiral off into something altogether weirder until you have no idea what is true and what isn’t. He’s a defiantly cult act but deserved more coverage than he got this year.
By contrast Connor Burns is clearly on the path to mainstream stardom. There were a number of Scottish comics who did well at this year’s Fringe and Burns was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most crowdpleasing of the bunch. He had the full house at his large venue in the palm of his hand from the moment he walked onstage. His tales of family, gigs, travel and life in general had the whole room rocking. He might not be the right flavour for judging panels, but it’s no surprise that he sold out every show. Sometimes comedy fans know better than comedy critics.
There were two shows that I had to leave early this year. One was the aforementioned Ali Brice, the other was Stephen Catling (three stars). Both slightly overran and I had other shows to get to and Catling’s set was in an oppressively hot room so when he gave the audience the opportunity to leave I grabbed it. He also had a technical issue with the sound, though after the initial glitch it didn’t throw him too much. He’s an interesting performer. He is autistic and when not performing works in the NHS. I’d definitely like to see him again in better circumstances.
Like Connor Burns Christopher MacArthur-Boyd (four stars) is another rising Scottish star. His show talked about the recent changes in his life, breaking up with one Australian girlfriend and starting a relationship with another. It’s not him that has a type, he joked, it’s them. In which case their type is small, witty Scottish stand-ups with the glasses of Ronnie Corbett and the hair of Michael McIntyre.
There were some great female comics at the Fringe this year and I’d heard good things about US-based Irish comic Katie Boyle (three stars). I think I caught her on an off-night though because her set, about pregnancy, relationships and abortion never quite caught fire. I don’t think the seating at her venue, The Tron, helped. It had been reconfigured (I presume for all the shows here this year, not just hers) so that it was split down the middle with one side facing the stage and one side at a slight angle and somehow the two sides were never quite in sync.
Ayoade Bamgboye had picked up the Best Newcomer Award a few hours before I saw her show so she was clearly on a high. And it was easy to see why she triumphed. The Anglo-Nigerian stand-up has a quirky yet accessible style, with the show based around an argument over tea in a supermarket.Ffrom this trivial encounter Bamgboye spins off into some pretty unusual places, her accent switching between Nigerian and English for no apparent reason. It's a very notable debut and I'm sure she has already been snapped up by TV/radio.
Barry Ferns (four stars) will be known to London comedy fans as one of the movers and shakers behind Angel Comedy and the Bill Murray pub. Or should that be Lionel Richie? Ferns’ show tells the story of how he changed his name to the same name as the soulful singer for seven years. It was certainly an eventful seven years that included a frantic race to pass his driving test to land a lucrative TV job. Ferns tells the story with honesty and charm. And if you’ve ever spotted a sticker or plaque that says variants of ‘Lionel Richie owns this’ if you see this show you’ll now know who is responsible.
Elouise Eftos (three stars) picked up a Best Newcomer nomination for her debut show Australia’s First Attractive Comedian. It’s not the funniest show I saw at the Fringe but Eftos does have a lot of fun subverting the idea of being seen as a sexy comedian and playing around with the men in the front row who may have bought tickets on the basis of her Ursula Andress-style poster.
Rosa Garland’s show (three stars) featured a lot more nudity than Eftos and started with the performer pissing into a jar which she then poured into a bucket. This was one of those shows that straddled comedy, clowning and performance art, at times empowering, at times critiquing the male gaze and at times just downright messy. the bucket of piss also featured in the finale. I’m probably not the first to suggest that Garland could probably have made more money this August via Onlyfans.
Phil Ellis (four stars, pictured below) won the Malcolm Hardee Award for the act most likely to make a million pounds. I love Ellis, and he is going to be on the next series of Taskmaster, but if I’m honest I think Cat Cohen, who bizarrely missed out on an Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination this year, would be a shrewder investment. But his show is daft and lovely and he does get more personal about his family than he ever has before and even if he doesn’t make a million hopefully he won’t be in a flatshare and sharing a shelf in a fridge for much longer.
Diona Doherty (four stars) is a big star in Ireland and it is easy to see why. She’s a powerhouse of a stand-up with personality oozing from every pore. In her Fringe show she talks about “getting her pink back” after motherhood - apparently flamingoes fade after parenthood and the same thing happens to human mums. Judging by her full-on turbo=charged performance Doherty has certainly got her pink back, with some added pink just for good measure.
Bebe Cave’s Christbride (four stars) was a real novelty. A high energy play set in medieval England with Cave playing all the characters. It was quickfire funny and accessible with Cave barely pausing for breath for 60 minutes as she switched costumes and gender – her scene as a bunch of knights was a particular stand-out moment in a show that must have come close to the Awards list.
I didn’t get round to seeing Ivo Graham (four stars) until the final evening. I wanted to save it so I knew I had something good to look forward to. And it didn’t disappoint. The theme was Graham exploring his favourite orange things - from cheesy wotsits to chocolate oranges. the subtext is that orange is the thematic colour of the MS society and his mother has MS. I’ll be reviewing this show in full when it tours, so i won’t go into more detail here, except to say that smart, self-deprecating humour doesn’t come any better. Or any oranger.
And finally on the final night it was 10.50pm and I’d had enough of taking notes. So I finished by seeing Jordan Brookes (five stars). It was a work in progress so I wasn’t planning to review it, but boy, was it a special show to end on. Tina Fey was standing outside the crate Brookes was performing in and at the start a fan offered Brookes a t-shirt on which there was a picture of Brookes and the fan from earlier in the run. All very Alan Partridge. And then when someone tried to leave to go to the toilet Brookes said they could only leave if they gave the t-shirt to Tina Fey. Apparently they threw it and Tina caught it. So she is now the proud possessor of a t-shirt with Brookes’ face on it. Oh and as for the show, it’s partly about those unique times when you do something amazing and nobody sees it. Like a Hollywood superstar catching your t-shirt…
If you can bear it read more Edinburgh Fringe reviews here.
