Edinburgh Fringe Review
In the past three years Al Porter has progressed from playing a tiny room at the Gilded Balloon to a giant barn at the Underbelly.
In recent years audience participation shows seem to have grown in popularity, with the likes of Adam Riches and Dr Brown having award-winning hits with gigs where the ticketholder becomes co-star. This year’s big new immersive success could come from Australian comic Steen Raskopoulos.
I hadn’t seen Phil Wang live for a few years and I didn’t have much inclination to see him this year. The last time I saw him I thought he was pretty childish and immature, but decided to give him another shot. I don’t know what has happened in the last few years but in Kinabalu the boy has become a man. Well, I guess I do know what happened. He is 27 – three years older and three years more mature.
I was sitting next to a friend at Cactus, the latest show from Adam Hess, and afterwards they turned to me and said “I’ve never heard you laugh so much.” I’m not known for laughing out loud at comedy shows (I don’t think many critics are) so this is praise indeed. The review would be five stars but he talks so fast and so frantically it is sometimes hard to keep up. And there is something about his frankly manic style that may not appeal to everyone.
There are always a few shows that can get overlooked in Edinburgh so I'm eternally grateful to my colleague Dominic Maxwell, who on my last day at the Fringe pointed me in the direction of a show that is totally dotty and deranged but also deceptively well-crafted.
I’ve previously only ever seen purple puppet Randy with his double act partner Sammy J. But he has performed solo in the past and this year’s show, Randy Writes A Novel, finds him on his own again, a wannabe author who wants to test out his new manuscript on us.
Nine finalists, seven of them women. A record. End of subject. And now to the review.
Reviewed by Claire Smith.
Reviewed by Claire Smith.
Lamenting the state of the world while asking what on earth a young comic can do to change it has been something of a theme at this year’s Fringe. But Tom Ballard, who was an Edinburgh Comedy Awards shortlisted newcomer last year and is one of the Best Show nominees this year, has an original take on the question.
Earlier today I saw a show called Come Look At The Baby, which is basically a baby sitting on a chair gurgling and grinning for thirty minutes. Cute of course, but round the corner on Cowgate you will get a lot more sense out of Charmian Hughes, aged 60.
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