Abby Govindan (pictured with hands on her ears) is very much a rising star in America and you can see why from her striking debut at the Edinburgh Fringe (Pleasance Courtyard, four stars). In Pushing 30 she tackles a wide range of riffs from the inevitable pressure from her South Asian parents to settle down to an account of how she accidentally landed a credit for writing Emily In Paris. She is a playful presence but with a serious undertow about cultural pressures and the power of social media.

 

She has a neat way of shuttling between telling stories and illustrating them onscreen and quickly establishes a rapport with her audience. Needless to say on the night I was in there were female Asian heads dotted all around the room nodding in agreement at her stories about her parents despairing that she was still single, but make no mistake, others were agreeing too. Govindan clearly has a wide appeal, thanks to a sharp brain and quick wit. Read Govindan's answers to our Rarely Asked Questions here. 

 

Typical. You wait ages for an Edinburgh Fringe show putting the boot into critics and then two come along in quick succession. In Adam Riches' The Critic's Way (Underbelly, three stars, presumably a take on essential performer's handbook, The Artist's Way) the awarding-winning character comedian plays Caliban Munroe, 'the single most influential critic of our times' – according to the The Caliban Munroe Podcast anyway. The show is part-seminar, part-Ted Talk, part-masterclass. You will learn very little about the art of criticism but maybe that's the point, revealing that Munroe knows very little about the art of criticism.

 

As the show evolves we quickly realise that Munroe isn't the talent he thinks he is, and if he ever was a force to be reckoned with he isn't any more, having been replaced on The Scotsman by a mere blogger. Riches is a brilliant performer, as always putting his total heart and soul into the role. Maybe it was a bit too close to the bone for me, maybe it felt a bit fish-in-a-barrel during the Fringe, but I didn't feel like this was his best work. Or maybe it was just that the stools that we had to sit on played havoc with my lumber region. 

 

Later that night Andrew Doherty also twisted the knife with Reviewers Welcome...To Die! (Pleasance Courtyard, three stars). This was less a critique of the culture of criticism and more a late night Hammer horror panto, complete with fake blood and Doherty playing all the characters. At the heart of the show, however is a haunting – fictional smug critic Felix Chatelier once wrote a bad review and boy, has the victim of those written words been haunted by it. Revenge is clearly a dish best served at the Edinburgh Fringe.

 

Having seen the title I was hoping for something more like Theatre of Blood, the movie in which Vincent Price bumps off reviewers who have doubted his talents, but Doherty takes this in a different direction. At times it feels a little like a low-fi lost League of Gentlemen sketch, with Doherty playing the eccentric townsfolk of Loughborough on a dark and stormy night. It's fun and stylishly overacted at times but given that critics are such an easy target I thought it needed to go even further and really nail them/us/me. 

 

Jonno Johnson (Pleasance Courtyard, four stars) probably doesn't need the Edinburgh Fringe. The former member of sketch group Sheeps (or current member if they are only on hiatus) is currently the head writer on SNL UK, which must feel like one of the best jobs in comedy after the plaudits of the first series. It returns to Sky in September. Maybe this run, Here Comes Mr Funny, is Johnson's way of auditioning for a role in front of the cameras as well as behind them, demonstrating his gift for musical comedy as well as off-kilter gags. 

 

It goes without saying that he is a really good writer, coming up with oddball scenarios and stories and finding fresh ways to deliver familiar tropes. He has a 'stool of sincerity' for the serious bits but I'm not quite sure if this worked. He starts with some great gags which I won't give away, but over an hour the impact starts to slip away. A lot of his stories involve him building up to something big and then pulling the rug, like teasing us that he is going to be on a famous C4 game show, or that he has written the new Bond theme, or that he is starring in a West End musical. Some great ideas along the way though. In fact plenty that would work as stand alone sketches on a show like, well, SNL UK. But all in the same place they felt a little too samey. He's got a good singing voice. Maybe he will star in that musical one day. 

 

Davina Bentley (Pleasance Courtyard, four stars, pictured above) is a new name to me, but like Johnson she is also a writer behind the scenes, albeit a more modest one, working on The News Quiz and Dead Ringers, and has a substantial online presence. She also has a pretty substantial stage presence. She is a qualified lawyer so maybe it's no surprise that she is articulate and eloquent and puts a pretty persuasive case for buying a ticket to see her show. There's no arrogance here. If anything she plays it amiably low status, making sure everyone knows that her older sister who is a surgeon has a much more sorted life.

 

There is nothing hold-the-front-page groundbreaking about the subject matter – ageing, dating, cosmetic surgery, being a single woman in her forties and thus a great disappointment to her glamorous mother (see also Govindan above) – but Bentley has a keen ear for a comic line and often takes things in a direction you don't expect. A running gag about Henry VIII (he seems to be a bit of a Fringe theme this year) which involves audience members and an impromptu quiz breaks up the stand-up format. One of my welcome discoveries of Fringe 2026.