Show 6: Mat Ewins: Mat Ewins Will Make You A Star

After being recommended by Stuart Goldsmith on his Comedian’s Comedian podcast (you may be spotting a bit of a theme with my comedy discoveries these days) I thought I’d see what the fuss was about Mat Ewins. He’s got a very funny youtube clip of a slightly shambolic magic act then half-of-a-comedy-double-act set, which is very worthwhile watching.

In the slightly vomit-infused venue of The Hive, Mat Ewins has made an hour of the most joyously silly, ridiculous, at times left-field comedy I’ve ever seen.

It’s a tenuous premise for an hour of mad video-based antics. Mat Ewins plays a famous actor who’s willing to help his audience make it big too. A variety of crudely doctored video clips and deliberately bad film-making alongside some smart software trickery with audience members makes for an hour of raucous, breathtakingly hilarious jokes.

If you’re a fan of general silliness like Pappy’s, Joseph Morpurgo’s sketches from Soothing Sounds For Babies then this is the show for you. Mat Ewins is funny through and through.

Score: 9/10

Venue: Heroes at The Hive

Dates: 14-28 August

Time: 21.00

Price: Pay what you want or £5 to guarantee entry

Show 5: Steen Raskopoulos – You Know The Drill

Having listened to Steen Raskopoulos’s Comedian’s Comedian podcast, and having bagged a Best Newcomer nomination in 2014 I was intrigued by his format of mixed set piece with audience improv.

The show’s based on various sketches with intermittent audience participation sets, which generally work tremendously well. He’s got some delightful bits of wrong footing and silliness that makes for good-natured fun.

Playing in one of the medium-sized rooms at the underbelly, Steen Raskopoulos does well to keep the audience’s attention, and he succeeds with enticing the audience into playing along with his various antics.

Highlights include The Interactive Museum and the unwitting audience member who has to overcome various whimsical challenges to retrieve his friend’s ball. I shan’t spoil the surprise but it makes for great watching.

It takes a confident performer to incorporate improv into a show and Steen succeeds brilliantly. A very enjoyable hour.

Score: 8/10

Venue: Underbelly at the Cowgate

Dates:  14, 16-28 August

Time: 19.40

Price: £11.50 (£10.50) weekdays,  £12.50 (£11.50) weekends

Show 4: Gary Delaney: There’s Something About Gary

A master one-liner returns to Edinburgh for a short run. Gary Delaney’s powers through a great set of puns and one-liners that side step the audience delightfully. He mixes things up with some picture-based gags based on his travels and there’s a nice selection of his best twitter jokes playing on a projector screen as the audience comes in.

Generally, though, Gary Delaney’s show this time round is rather heavy on blue and crude material, which suits the club scene well but isn’t particularly to my taste. Despite that it’s still an entertaining 55 minutes of wrong-footing and fun.

Score: 7/10

Venue: The Stand Comedy Club, Stand 1

Dates: 14 August

Time: 17.30

Price: £12

Show 3: Ed Gamble: Stampede

Ed Gamble's been doing stand up for 11 years so, as he says, it's time to evaluate his career. With appearances in Mock The Week and a previous podcast with Ray Peacock, he's not doing too badly.

But his show doesn't focus on his success, rather it's a 55 minute exploration of masculinity, food and cauliflower. Somehow he manages to make it all work. He's got some nice observations on the absurdities of dieting and the pain it is to be a mentally fat man in a physically thin man with plenty of entertaining moments but overally it becomes a bit 'laddish' and bluntly crude to be to my taste.

He did, however, have some nice indignation at the audience members blatently and not-self-consciously going for toilet breaks in the middle of the show.


Overall, a pretty decent hour but there aren't any boundaries being pushed.









Score: 5/10
Venue: Gilded Balloon at The Counting House
Dates: August
Time: 15:15
Price: Pay what you want or £5 to guarantee a seat

Show 2: Punel Show

Darren Walsh and Mark Simmons present a 50 minute panel game show based around puns. Both are previous winners of a 'joke of the fringe' award, so one expects quality.

As with the nature of most one-liner based does there are hits and misses but overall the two hit the mark. Some last minute audience participation (one of the invited guest punellists, a friend of one co-host, out right refused to come as they didn't know they'd be performing - ah the best laid plans...) worked surprisingly well.

There's a good density of puns in this show and any fan of wordplay will certainly enjoy themselves. It also had a charming ramshackleness one expects of the smaller fringe shows.

And the audience can even play along.

Overall an enjoyable 50 minutes but steer clear if you're an enemy of wordplay. 

Score: 6/10
Venue: Voodoo Rooms, West Register Street
Dates: 13-15, 17-22, 24-28 August
Time: 12:30 
Price: Free

Show 1: Shappi Khorsandi: Oh My Country! From Morris Dancing to Morrissey

Having listened to Shappi Khorsandi’s episode of Comedian’s Comedian I was tremendously struck by her warmth, her deep insight into cultural and national identity and vulnerability. Intrigued, I got a ticket to her show.

16 years working in comedy has shaped Khorsandi into an ebullient, open hearted performer. Her show is comprised on tales of her family finding their cultural feet in England, the stark differences between her frighteningly middle-class young son and her more outgoing daughter who has absorbed her Iranian identity.

Shappi Khorsandi plays the audience brilliantly, and an ill-timed phone call from a front row audience member led to some rather delightful hi-jinx. She as confident. She was joyous and giving. She was an absolute delight to watch.

I shan’t spoil the jokes, but damn did she have some lovely observations of the cultural differences she’s encountered. Also the impressions of her children are rather charming.

Overall, an excellent start to my Edinburgh 2016 festival outing.

Score: 9/10
Venue: The Stand Comedy Club, Stand 1
Dates: 13-14, 16-28 August
Time: 20:30
Price: £12 (£10)

Edinburgh 2016

Hello hello.

Outrageously I've had to delay my first taste of the Edinburgh Festival vibe until the second weekend of August due to inconveniently timed courses I decided to attend in London. Sadly the ever present threat of unemplyment and failure to progress in a professional capacity struck me like a heavy goods vehicle driven by a blind man in May, or my mother's despair at my lack of telephone calls home, leading me to sacrifice the first weekend of August to sitting in a hospital learning about x-rays (oh the things we do for staying in paid employment). And I forgot to call my mother that weekend (damn).

BUT! that time has passed and the second weekend is racing towards me.

Due to the hectic work hours of my previous placement, the Edinburgh schedule for 2016 was compiled rather late with this year's shows being booked only around 20th July.

Here my tendency for disorganisation foiled my plans once again. As it turned out I have a mandatory training day on Friday 26th August, a day on which I had planned on sneakily being in Edinburgh for a rather long weekend. "No, this day cannot be rearranged" said the e-mail from the course administrator. Oops.

Cue mild panic, arranging trains, re-buying show tickets and even more frantic shedding of pounds from the bank account (if only it could have been from my waist instead...ha-ha-ha-ha-ha [give it a moment, the awkward silence will pass eventually]).

Finally I have my schedule and trains for Edinburgh for 2016. I'll be making 4 return trips to and from Edinburgh again this year, though there will be a period where I'm away from Edinbirgh for less than 24 hours in the final week (oh the things we do for the never-ending pursuit of laughter, the meaning to life and art).

There don't appear to be as many old favourites in Edinburgh this year. Unfortuantely no Pappy's, no Alex Edelman and no Joseph Morpurgo, though I will be making a trip to James Acaster and Nish Kumar in the final weekend, and I wrangled a ticket for Daniel Kitson on Thursday 25th. Good God is that going to be an excellent weekend.

Show number one on Friday will be Shappi Khorsandi, who I was inspired to see after listening to her Comedian's Comedian Podcast episode. Heavens, does she have a story to tell, and an insight into comedy and performance that astounded me.

Over the past year I've seen some excellent comedy since Edinburgh 2015, namely Joseph Morpurgo's show another two times, Nish Kumar's 2015 show and James Acaster's 2015 show.

Nish Kumar once again delievered sharp, brilliantly crafted observations and jokes about privilege, life and the outrageous state of UK politics in 2015. James Acaster surprised me with what was a highly entertaining and imaginative show; his bit about a made-up fable nearly drowned me in laughter.

And Joseph Morpurgo... I must admit I've thought and re-thought about that show several times in the past year. Even now I still feel goosebumps and a warm fuzzy feeling envelopes itself around me whenever I think about that show. It was one of the best shows, and most probably my favourite, I've ever seen. The feelings I had after that show will never leave me, and it's a rare feeling; a feeling of wonderment, excitement, astonishment and joy all wrapped up in a sweet moment that just can't be recaptured. Even watching his show a second and third time didn't leave me with the same feeling after the first. His numerous Chortle awards were more than deserved, and it's a shame he didn't win last year.

I've got just over 20 shows scheduled for this year. I may not be able to fit in any extra, and I doubt I'll beat last year's record of number of shows seen, but no matter.

Here's to Edinburgh 2016.