What are your feelings as you enter into this year’s Edinburgh Fringe season?
Two words! Excitement and dread. This is the time when there’s a lot of sleepless nights, imagining this thing I thought was funny, turns out to be wrong… but I guess that’s the gamble.
What is the premise of your Edinburgh show this year?
Taking a difficult subject and trying to make it funny. In 2016 I was in a coma after trying to get home from a gig. I talk about what happened and also the world I came to back to.
What is the biggest obstacle you face(d) while putting this show together?
Writing it. Following my accident my cognitive skills aren’t as it was. My brain takes a lot longer to organise or communicate my ideas more clearly. But I’m not a quitter, I’ve dug deeper and I’m hopeful that I’ve done myself justice.
Has your attitude towards the Fringe changed at all in recent years?
Nope – I’ll still take each day as it comes and try to enjoy it more this year.
Do you have any other Edinburgh show recommendations?
Too many to mention, there’s so many wonderful acts taking shows up to the Fringe this year. I like stumbling and discovering brilliant new or exciting acts I’ve never heard of before. That’s what Edinburgh is all about.
Where? Pleasance Courtyard – Bunker One (Venue 33)
When? 19:15
What are your feelings as you enter into this year’s Edinburgh Fringe season?
I can’t bloody wait to get my show out there and have my Greatest Showman moment of “This is me!” Sure, I’m nervous about reviews and getting audiences in (please come!) but that’s natural and just shows I care.
What is the premise of your Edinburgh show this year?
My show is my coming out moment (I’m straight btw) – my time to have a proper platform to tell everyone who I am and how I came to be here. My show starts with my errant teenage years as one of the original chavs from Chatham, to my twenties as (unbelievably) a high-flying TV Exec to the life-changing decision to become a comedian in my thirties. POW!
What is the biggest obstacle you face(d) while putting this show together?
Doing it justice and really getting my message across – I want this show to be a celebration of my working class roots – they are the reason I have to pinch myself so often. This isn’t a story of struggle, it’s a story of pride.
Has your attitude towards the Fringe changed at all in recent years?
I see the Fringe as an opportunity, a business one, a spring board. I came to the Fringe for the first time 3 years ago, I’d been going about 5 months and was in the final of SYTYF. Being in the final put me in front of agents at a really early stage in my career. The following year I came up to do spots to get a feel for it. Last year, I did my first full month doing 40 minutes, which put hairs on my chest. Now, this year, I’m back, I’ve waxed my chest and ready for the “Big Debut”!
Do you have any other Edinburgh show recommendations?
Rosie Jones, she’s my bae and a knock-out comic (her show is at the same time as mine – that’s how much I love her!). Helen Bauer is also debuting and her whirlwind style is definitely a must-see!
Where would you like to be in a year’s time?
Well, I know I’ll be writing another bloody show! By this time next year, I would like to have built my fanbase more and for people to be buying tickets, not because I’m a newcomer they don’t know, but because they remember me and can’t wait to see me again.
What are your feelings as you enter into this year’s Edinburgh Fringe season?
I am very nervous. I have two months to go, but am trying a very different, very political show this year.
What is the premise of your Edinburgh show this year?
I was having ukulele lessons and I kept having these ideas for songs. I am a libertarian in my politics. We are fairly few and far between, but I could tell that my uke teacher was pretty sympathetic to this world view because he kept laughing at my song ideas and adding to them and making them way better. Gradually these uke lessons became song writing sessions. I then tried out a couple of the songs at free speech comedy night, Comedy Unleashed in London, and they went down so well, I thought, I’m onto some thing here. I thought it might be funny to juxtapose the traditions of the socialist protest song, only make it the political polar opposite – i.e. libertarian protest songs. So that’s how it started. And it gradually morphed into Libertarian Love Songs.
What is the biggest obstacle you face(d) while putting this show together?
My inability to play the ukulele.
Has your attitude towards the Fringe changed at all in recent years?
The Edinburgh Fringe seems to get better every year. There is so much competition and the result is that the shows get better and better. Comedy is the great winner – standards rise, which is for the benefit of everyone who likes comedy.
The biggest problem this year is the cost of accommodation, which as arisen as a result of some idiot left-wing ruling designed to protect people but in actual fact just making life more expensive and more difficult for everyone. There is an example if you needed it of yet another idiotic government intervention, and that is why I encourage you to VOTE LIBERTARIAN LOVE SONG.
Do you have any other Edinburgh show recommendations?
Yes. My lecture on Adam Smith and the economics of the Edinburgh Festival. And a free show called The ShadowPunk revolution
What are your feelings as you enter into this year’s Edinburgh Fringe season?
Excited. I had a really good time last year and it’s given me so much energy to race back in with a really tight show full of punchy ideas and things I’m excited to share with an audience.
What is the premise of your Edinburgh show this year?
I’m looking at fear this year… my own big fears, but also how fear seems to charge people up to behave in certain ways. I’m using the techniques I assembled during my own mental health therapy to try to get to the bottom of some of the root fears that are fuelling the way people react to certain things within society.
What is the biggest obstacle you face(d) while putting this show together?
Nerves about getting it wrong. I think I worry a lot about being complicit through silence on things I don’t agree with, but then I am constantly scared too about trying to be vocal in case I’m not the most informed person on the planet. Hopefully with this show I’ve found a way to speak up and be supportive of things that are important to me.
Has your attitude towards the Fringe changed at all in recent years?
Yes, hugely. I’ve seen through some of the more ridiculous, energy sapping aspects of it and started to see it for what it is: a fun, colourful wonderful playground that only has to feel competitive if you succumb to that pressure. It’s hard to go in focusing forward but you really have to put your blinkers on and go in looking for the highs.
Do you have any other Edinburgh show recommendations?
Jess Fostekew’s show ‘Hench’ and Paul F Taylor’s show ‘Odd Paul’. I saw previews of both of them at Machynlleth Festival and I’m SO excited to see them again once all the fine-tuning is done – they were so good.
What are your feelings as you enter into this year’s Edinburgh Fringe season?
Excited (as haven’t been for 5 years and keen to share my show with people).
What is the premise of your Edinburgh show this year?
It’s about the friendship of my grandad (world renowned town planner Walter Bor) and his best friend (world famous actor Herbert Lom) and their journey from Nazi-occupied Prague.
What is the biggest obstacle you face(d) while putting this show together?
It required a lot of research, filming and a lot of actual work. As a comedian, I am not used to this!
Has your attitude towards the Fringe changed at all in recent years?
Yes, since being a dad, it has been more of a challenge and commitment, but I feel like I have a show this year that is really worth it.
Do you have any other Edinburgh show recommendations?
I am looking forward to seeing James McNicholas, Arnab Chanda, Tom Parry, Ian Smith and Luke McQueen.
What are your feelings as you enter into this year’s Edinburgh Fringe season?
I’m really excited to be coming back to the Fringe because I haven’t performed in the UK for a while and since then, I think the culture of being a female comedian has shifted slightly but significantly. In Australia it’s been a really exciting time so it’s going to be nice to see in Edinburgh.
What is the premise of your Edinburgh show this year?
It’s a safari party that starts on a cruise ship. The show explores female friendship in a non-traditional and absurd way.
What is the biggest obstacle you face(d) while putting this show together?
Re-imagining the show for an international audience without losing our Australian-ness.
Has your attitude towards the Fringe changed at all in recent years?
I’ve always loved the Fringe. It is pretty magical to be near a castle. We don’t have those in Aus. I think as the Fringe grows it obviously becomes harder to make ends meet for everyone but I’ve been pretty privileged and lucky in the past. Hopefully we can find a way to keep the Fringe accessible to younger artists. It made a huge difference for me when I was first starting out. I’d hate to see up and coming people priced out.
Do you have any other Edinburgh show recommendations?
I directed Demi Lardner’s Ditch Witch 800 so I’d love you to see that! I’m also really in love with Snort, an improv group from New Zealand. Zach and Viggo are always a treat, so is Stamptown and Late Night Lip Service.
Where would you like to be in a year’s time?
I’d love to keep working on the TV show i’m working on and maybe be able to bring my dog to set. That’s the dream.
Where? Gilded Balloon at Old Tolbooth Market – Top (Venue 98)
When? 13:00
What are your feelings as you enter into this year’s Edinburgh Fringe season?
Really looking forward to this year’s Festival. I always learn so much from doing Ed Fringe, that I am excited to see where another one under my belt can take me. There really is nothing like it, a comedy bootcamp if you will… I am taking two shows up this year; one stand up, one sketch, so I do need to remind myself of the fun that is to be had, because right now I am in the thick of gigging and previewing two shows, so it’s quite intense at the moment.
What is the premise of your Edinburgh show this year?
Eat Sleep Shit Shag is anecdotal of my ex career as a showgirl, working on cruise ships, and of my time working in India as a Bollywood dancer! I tell tales of my youth in Essex, and how it came about that I even became a professional dancer, and what made me leave that behind for a career in Comedy.
What is the biggest obstacle you face(d) while putting this show together?
My first couple of Fringes I was performing character comedy. Girl On Fire & HaveA Word saw my love child Stephanie Vange hold court telling tales of her Essex failings. After a couple of years off, I came back with my first hour of straight stand up as ME. That was the biggest obstacle, getting out of my own way, and realising that I could just be up there with a mic and my stories and that would be enough. I just about believed it by the end of last year’s Fringe, so I am back this year to cement in what I learned, and build on that new confidence.
Has your attitude towards the Fringe changed at all in recent years?
In some ways yes, I used to think the Edinburgh Fringe was open to all, even if you didn’t have huge financial support behind you, if you were prepared to work hard – which I did, holding down a job 6 days a week to be able to afford to do the festival! I felt I had proved wherever there was a will there was a way. I am now on my 4th festival, still fully self funded, and tbh it is taking it’s toll! Now I realise in that way the festival is privileged, because without a tonne of gumption (and cash) you can take part, but you will struggle to be consistently do so – Hence the couple of years off I had in the middle. SO, yes the financial side of Ed Fringe I have now seen and experienced, is suffocating new and or developing talent.
Do you have any other Edinburgh show recommendations?
Can I say my own Sketch Show? (Just did) LOL Beg Borrow & Bitch Ridiculously silly, British camp, mixed with retro 80s nostalgia – Think Dynasty on steroids! We are on every night 22:30 at Old Tolbooth Market Bothy Bar! I am also looking forward to seeing Maddie Campion’s solo hour Truly Maddie Deeply, I have seen her gigging the London Circuit and think she is very good. Also I am a big fan of Olga Koch, looking forward to catching her show If/Then during the run! Ooo and Joz Norris, he’s up to something good and different this year! His show is at Heroes of the Hive Joz Norris Is Dead. Long Live Mr Fruit Salad – I mean, what is not to like about that title!
Where would you like to be in a year’s time?
This time next year? Shooting the sitcom I have penned – that would be nice… especially as it is set somewhere sunny! But honestly, as long as I am still dabbling and progressing as a stand up, actor and as a writer of all things comedy, I don’t mind, it’s what makes me happiest. Life! It’s a right laugh ain’t it…
This year, Kai Samra brings his work in progress show, Brothers, to The Mash House. Relatively new to the stand up circuit, this Brummie comedian appears remarkably comfortable in front of his audience. His delivery is calm and self-assured, but certainly not an act.
Samra talks about his family with no qualms about letting his listeners in, and this makes for a deeply personal hour of comedy. There are no sob stories here, just honest anecdotes and clever observations. He’s a very likeable performer and his relaxed and confident nature allows his audience to settle into the show effortlessly.
Brothers is a show about family, along with all its frustrations and affections. And Samra makes 45 minutes feel like ten. The laughs come easily and frequently, making it starkly clear that this comic could warm up even the coldest of audiences. It’s not hard to imagine this comic cracking into the mainstream some time soon.
This show is not a skeleton of a piece, and neither is it an amalgamation of too many half-formed ideas. This show already feels polished. So, when Kai Samra returns to Edinburgh next August, prepare for a fantastic, brilliantly formed hour of proficient stand up.
Irish improv hip hop artist Rob Broderick returns to Edinburgh with his solo show, Pirate Radio. Unlike previous Abandoman shows, Pirate Radio is a big-scale production. He’s ditched the powerpoint and electric keyboard for strobe lighting and ground-shuddering bass.
Rather than lots of small instances of audience participation (note Abandoman’s previous set-piece, ‘What’s In Your Pocket?’ where audience members hold up the most obscure item on their possession and Broderick improvises a rap about it), volunteer participants in this new show are a far bigger part of the proceedings. If you have something funny or strange to offer up, prepare to have a musical piece devised entirely in your honour.
Single audience members are brought up to stand in front of a packed Udderbelly, and yet there is never any hint of anxiety. Rob puts his participants at ease by spelling out what he requires of them and never failing to make it silly.
Being a much bigger, much more refined performance, it feels at times as though Abandoman has lost its personal touch. But where this show lacks in intimacy, Broderick makes up for in showmanship. From a heart-wrenching song about leaving a sleeping bag on a train, to a musical re-enactment of a childhood three-legged race, Broderick’s skill for snappy improvisation is as present as ever.
If you want your comedy upscaled, exciting and as loud as a music gig, Abandoman is no doubt the show for you.
Bringing a reworking of last year’s show Genius to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Simon Evans proclaims that he has no issue with ‘digging the same furrow’. Genius 2.0 asks what the future of our society is. Are we regressing in terms of intelligence and creativity?
This is a show of comparison through the ages, from drinking laws to the Guinness Book of World Records. It’s about how our lives have become more restricted as the years have passed. Though academic in his tone, this doesn’t feel like a lecture. Evans is surprisingly able to keep his large audience on the same page as him, despite his flowery language and analytic, black-and-white approach to assessing the problems he raises.
Evans’ point is glisteningly clear, but it’s hard to fully invest in the idea that our society is less intelligent (or less intelligence-orientated) than it was forty years ago. Yes, there is certainly more of a focus on mind-numbing reality television and a vacuous idea of what constitutes beauty (often consisting of botox injections and lip fillers), but aspects of our society are arguably thriving as strongly as ever, in areas including but not limited to science, philosophy and literature.
I’d feel a little uncomfortable, as a twenty-year-old university student, to be sat in this comic’s audience if I didn’t know he had teenage children himself. It is these anecdotes about his kids’ experiences, inspirations and education that allow us to ascertain that Evans isn’t simply having a go at the youth of today.
As the show goes on, Evans allows himself to exist at the same level as his audience, sharing his irksome experiences with ageing, from thinning hair to forgetfulness. But the set piece of the show is one that rings in the ear long after Evans has left the stage. The downfall of our society, as Evans see it, is the fact it is shrouded in apathy. Our country is lead by someone who studied at Oxford, yet graduated in a 2:2 in Geography. Someone who bends over backwards, surely almost to the point of snapping, at a slight gust of wind.
Simon Evans’ outlook on the state of society today is strangely motivating rather than depressing. The powers that be may be failing us, but we each have the opportunity to flourish however we want to, despite this unsettling prognosis.