Edinburgh Fringe 2022

[Small Man Big Horse]

Saw SNORT tonight - thanks to CaB bringing it to my attention.
Really good fun.

Glad you liked them - who was on stage tonight out of interest?

[DrGreggles]

Glad you liked them - who was on stage tonight out of interest?

Rose Matefeo and Paul Williams were 2 of them.
I'll have to check the others.

[Bobloblawslawbomb]

Just seen Stewart Lees work in progress. Very much looking forward to seeing how a routine about 

Spoiler alert

J.K. Rowling

[close]

develops in the future.

Best show I've seen this weekend is Laura Davis . Absolutely relentless. Includes the funniest

Spoiler alert

on stage nudity

[close]

I've ever seen.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Rose Matefeo and Paul Williams were 2 of them.
I'll have to check the others.

And how was Paul Williams? I only ask as I'm a huge fan (of both his comedy and music) and had tickets to see him in London, but it was on the hottest day ever and I couldn't face leaving the house.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Best show I've seen this weekend is Laura Davis . Absolutely relentless. Includes the funniest

Spoiler alert

on stage nudity

[close]

I've ever seen.

I look forward to the rest of the run being cancelled.

[JCR]

I look forward to the rest of the run being cancelled.

She said she got a warning from the fringe that she had given the show the wrong age rating and that you have to sign paperwork with them if the show has any nudity. (And hers is ridiculous non sexualised nudity)

I got an email from the fringe yesterday that Stewart Lee had the wrong age rating and should have been 18+, so presumably he's had complaints as well.

[CaledonianGonzo]

There's only one performance left so tonight is the last chance - but if you're swithering and wondering whether or not to commit I reckon Jacqueline Novak just about justifies the hype.

[CaledonianGonzo]

On Laura Davis, how does it rank in comparison to her previous shows? I really liked Cake In The Rain, but Ghost Machine didn't work for me.

[JCR]

On Laura Davis, how does it rank in comparison to her previous shows? I really liked Cake In The Rain, but Ghost Machine didn't work for me.

Never saw her previous shows, went in completely blind based of a Tom Walker tweet recommending her. I enjoyed it, but maybe know it gets shouty political near the end.

[Bobloblawslawbomb]

On Laura Davis, how does it rank in comparison to her previous shows? I really liked Cake In The Rain, but Ghost Machine didn't work for me.

Definitely the best show I've seen of hers. Has a real nihilistic streak running through it, mainly due to her living in the woods in New Zealand during the pandemic.

I enjoyed it, but maybe know it gets shouty political near the end

Was very shouty political, but I thought she still kept it funny throughout.

[the science eel]

She said she got a warning from the fringe that she had given the show the wrong age rating and that you have to sign paperwork with them if the show has any nudity. (And hers is ridiculous non sexualised nudity)

I got an email from the fringe yesterday that Stewart Lee had the wrong age rating and should have been 18+, so presumably he's had complaints as well.

Yeah, and then one saying 'actually it's 14+'!

[DrGreggles]

And how was Paul Williams? I only ask as I'm a huge fan (of both his comedy and music) and had tickets to see him in London, but it was on the hottest day ever and I couldn't face leaving the house.

He was really good. Obviously his humour is pretty dry, but it gave the show a different dynamic that I suspect is missing when he's not there.

Rose was the real star though. I saw her at an improv thing a few years ago and she was a bit timid, but she really shone here.

[Small Man Big Horse]

He was really good. Obviously his humour is pretty dry, but it gave the show a different dynamic that I suspect is missing when he's not there.

Rose was the real star though. I saw her at an improv thing a few years ago and she was a bit timid, but she really shone here.

Cheers for that, I'm really hoping they both do a couple of dates post Edinburgh as I'd love to see both his solo show, and Snort again, and I hear you with Rose, when I saw her for the first ten minutes she didn't do that much, but for the rest of the hour she was superb.

[WestHill]

I booked two tickets for Laura Davis on Sat 27th by accident (wrong date) if anyone is interested. Free to a good home.

[Bobloblawslawbomb]

Cheers for that, I'm really hoping they both do a couple of dates post Edinburgh as I'd love to see both his solo show, and Snort again, and I hear you with Rose, when I saw her for the first ten minutes she didn't do that much, but for the rest of the hour she was superb.

Saw Paul Williams solo show, like a low key Bo Burnham. A very talented fella.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Saw Paul Williams solo show, like a low key Bo Burnham. A very talented fella.

That's great to here, thanks for that.

[edwardfog]

Crybabies were incredible, probably my favourite show from this trip.

Paul Currie's getting a bit of buzz, and probably got the best reception of any show I've seen. People hooting and hollering throughout; real party atmosphere. Personally I wasn't a fan. Not the good kind of surrealism imo

For everyone who's been getting into Sam Campbell recently, I really recommend Dan Ruth's show at Assembly Rooms. He's comparatively little-known over here but extremely good. Him and Cambo used to be flatmates, and there's a lot of similarities, although Rath is more of a doomer outcast type

[JCR]

The fringe have emailed for the 3rd time about Stewart Lee, apologizing for the confusion but Lee's show is over 18's only and this will definitely be the final email on this topic.

I assume Lee will tell them he's changed his mind again tomorrow.

[Rizla]

.

[Bobloblawslawbomb]

Patti Harrison
Further thoughts. Parodying vacuous, self-absorbed wannabes is a fine line to walk cos if you do it well enough to the extent it becomes indistinguishable from the real thing then your show is dead in the water. Oddly misogynistic.  Huge tracts of dead, mirthless silence. Nuff walkouts.  One hugely performative over-laugher sat right behind me who was in on the joke and wanted everyone to know that he got it. But he'd started howling 5 minutes before she even came out on stage. Not going to say I didn't laugh at all and there were amusing spots here and there, but by the end it very much felt like a wasted hour.

Yeah you were not wrong about the long silences. I definitely enjoyed the rest of it more than you, maybe because there was a lot of goodwill in the audience the night I went and when the jokes landed they landed well. The Bjork routine and the Steve Bannon song had me laughing a lot.

Baffling thing is, the show overran by 15 mins (after starting 15 mins late also). There were probably (being charitable) 35-40 good mins in a 75 minute slot, she badly needs an editor or some more discipline to raise it from a 3 star to a 4 star show.

In other shows, very much enjoyed Tom Walker, Delightful Sausage, Crybabies, Sheeps, Josie Long, Chris Gethard, Tim Key and the previously mentioned Paul Williams and Laura Davis.

[DrGreggles]

The forecast this week suggests Edinburgh weather again - just in time for our drinks in the evening sunshine.

[greencalx]

It wouldn't be a Fringe if you didn't spend half of it sweating in a venue and the other half cowering under an inadequate umbrella.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Just twigged that that Sarah Squirm that they have now is doing a run of shows this week, if that's anyone's bag.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Paul Currie's getting a bit of buzz, and probably got the best reception of any show I've seen. People hooting and hollering throughout; real party atmosphere. Personally I wasn't a fan. Not the good kind of surrealism imo

I saw his show last year and he properly got the hump with me for not enjoying it *enough*

[CaledonianGonzo]

Seymour Mace - Captain Winky's Fuck off Olympics
A real change of pace this year from Seymour, who has forgone his usual mix of music, puppetry and art from something more improvised.  In a format vaguely reminiscent of Simon Munnery's old AGMs, the show is driven by questions taken from the audience - and that's more or less it.  So the stakes are simultaneously higher as he has to wing it with very little in the way of prep, and lower in that if it doesn't entertain it's the fault of the questions.  Luckily this was a fun hour, albeit with only a handful of real from-thin-air, lightning-in-a-bottle moments of comic gold.  But for a leftfield show that kicks off before the sun is over the yardarm, you could do a lot worse.

Mark Thomas - Black and White
Straightforward, full-on hour of trad stand-up from the 'free speech for me but not for thee' enthusiast.  Politics, politics and a little bit more politics for good measure - some of it commendably up to the minute, which suggests the show will continue to evolve.  Then a bit of music hall to conclude.  All of it from the expected political perspective and when it's good it's very good - he can be forgiven for dropping the more ambitious theatrical work to just kick back and have fun at lunchtime - if 'fun' is a word that can be used to describe the right old lather he winds himself up into.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Simon Munnery - Trials & Tribulations
You probably know by know whether or not this is for you - if it's Simon Munnery in The Stand mid-afternoon and yer granny and bongos.....  This year's hour is more of a story-telling show than usual, but with plenty of diversions and tangents as Simon gets distracted by either a bit of diversionary business or a momentary desire to break into a rendition of The Clash.  Not his most well-prepared show, but a long way from his most ramshackle and with some interesting anecdotage from Fringes past by one of the survivors of a now almost bygone era.  A lot of fun. Always different, always the same.

Michelle Brasier - Average Bear
Time for some jokes about Disney's Aladdin as a wee break from Beauty and the Beast.  Tragedy plus time = comedy?  I guess, but this show still has plenty of the former.  Musical autobiography from belter-voiced Aussie, with a hell of a tale to tell and enough charisma to sell some of the slightly under-cooked laughs.  The bear analogy lost me a little - and the two people sitting opposite me filming the whole show on their phones didn't help - but the story itself is gripping and you'd need a heart of stone not to be moved by the end of it.  Free hugs outside if that's your sort of thing. 

[CaledonianGonzo]

Mary Beth Barone - Silly Little Girl
Dry-ish, autobiographical debut hour from Mary Beth, with more than a little pointing and laughing at the "Wasn't I a daft / precocious / delusional youth?" vibes of her childhood photos and home video footage (which, alongside the likes of Shelf and Britney, seems to be another of this year's recurring tricks).  She's quite a low energy performer with a deadpan style, and the wilting heat in the room didn't do her many favours - but which did make the wee bit out of nowhere conclusion to the hour a little surprising.  Warning: contains copious quantities of vocal fry.

Jacqueline Novak - Get on Your Knees
Notoriously, the show that's just an hour and a half of blow-job jokes.  Except

Spoiler alert

it's anything but

[close]

.  Rather, the subject is just a launchpad for, variously, the 'this is me' content of the debutante and, less-expectedly various eloquent, lyrical discursive sections where a keen ear for parody allows her to embark on fanciful disquisitions in the style of the likes of Nabokov, Philip Roth, Shakespeare, etc.  Novak is a compelling performer and kept the energy bright and upbeat, with a knowing grin and a twinkling eye at how ridiculous some of her more fanciful material is.  Which made the numerous walk-outs all the more surprising - maybe the lateness of the hour, or the fact that the show was a full 90 minutes taking people by surprise.  Could it have been the material?  I guess so - but it never felt that graphic or one-dimensional.  Maybe that it was too philosophical and not just a relentless stream of nob gags?  Personally, in advance, I expected the unusual runtime to drag a little (even if it's nothing compared to what Kitson regularly puts people through at an ungodly hour) - but in the moment it sped by and I would have happily sat through some more of it.  Good stuff.

[DrGreggles]

I'm at the table immediately left of the Seance entrance.
On a table with an umbrella - I'm not an idiot!

[greencalx]

@DrGreggles  Shit. I'm inside at the  Dome bar. And have a pint so not sure if I can take it outside.

[greencalx]

(Sorry. Assumed you were with crabwalk who gave me the green light to shelter from the rain)