It’s nearly two weeks since I left Edinburgh and although there’s only a few days of the actual festival left, the Foster’s Comedy Award nominations were announced yesterday. I can’t say much for the Best Newcomer nominations, but I saw three of the five Best Comedy Show nominees (see below) and I’m seeing Sarah Millican in Bristol in October, so a fairly clean sweep (sorry Greg Davies). So with that in mind, here are my slightly fan-girlish round ups of all the shows that myself and my friend Emily (@Emilyin140 if you’re on Twitter) saw during our 3-and-a bit days in Edinburgh:
Jon Richardson (Don’t Happy, Be Worry) – I just don’t know how to feel about Jon Richardson’s show anymore. It should be said that I love Jon, so was almost guaranteed to like his show. And I’m fairly sure I did love it when we first saw it. It had Jon’s standard hilarious regional accents and good bits of physical comedy. Plus, I really appreciated some very accurately observed material about being from the North but living in the South. Also Jon spent £500 on some replica traffic lights (he mentioned this several times, so I thought it should be repeated here). However, I met Jon very briefly and somehow managed to maintain a non-swooning conversation where he said he didn’t think that night’s show had been very good at all. Admittedly, it wasn’t as laugh-out-loud funny as Dogmatic, but I still enjoyed it immensely. But now all of my opinions are confused, and I can’t remember what I originally thought. I’ve settled on the opinion that it was very good, but was lacking something. I’m sure Jon will find it though.
Russell Kane (Smokescreens and Castles) – I was convinced I didn’t like Russell Kane until I heard him on the fantastic Marsha Meets podcast. Also Emily really wanted to go and see him and I trust her judgement. I’m so glad I listened to both Martha and Emily. Smokescreens and Castles was one of the funniest and best structured comedy shows I’ve ever seen and I’m not surprised that Russell has been nominated for the comedy award. He reminded me quite a lot of pre-Sachsgate Russell Brand (post-Sachsgate RB just isn’t as inventively, originally funny), mainly because he’s very clever and from Essex. The majority of the show was hilarious and delivered with a huge amount of energy. Emily and I were sat on the front row and I was occasionally worried that Russell would hurl himself into the audience – I’ve never seen a comedian with that much energy. Also, we clearly give off an English student vibe, as he essentially delivered a bit about post-modernism just to us. Russell built a cardboard castle as well, which I just thought was the sweetest thing. However, the end of the show was heart-breaking. Emily and I were almost in tears. I’ve already booked tickets to see this show again in Bristol.
Bristol Revunions (Comedy Biscuit) – I’m not normally a massive fan of sketch comedy, I find it a bit hit-and-miss, but Comedy Biscuit was fun and likeable. It was also fast-paced enough that if you didn’t like one sketch, there was another along right away. The timing in their first scene was fantastic, even though I didn’t actually like the sketch. Their final sketch was pretty epic and added some catchy lyrics to the Jurassic Park theme song (we were singing it for days). There was also a model dinosaur – I love a good papier-mâché T-Rex. Also, we got ice-lollies halfway through. Free food in shows is always a win.
Comedy Countdown – Comedy Countdown was awful and disappointing. I hated it. I wouldn’t normally care so much, but it had the potential to be so good. Instead we got lazy comedians doing an hour of arse jokes. The only people who came out well were James Sherwood and Paul Sinha, who is actually amazing at maths. The high point of the show was some free biscuits. I had more fun talking to Emily in the queue beforehand. It was probably because Dan Atkinson wasn’t there. (To be fair, everything else we saw was of such a high standard that if something was bad, it would look really bad.) (Just to clarify, this show was comedians playing a shambolic version of the British teatime game show Countdown. It wasn’t an actual Countdown of any sort. Or this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdEadrw4O0U. I wish it had been that.)
Robin Ince (Carl Sagan Is Still My God) – Seeing Robin Ince was like going to an underground school (underground in both the cool counter-cultural sense, and the fact we were in the cellar bar of a pub). Ince is clearly a passionate man and he threw both science and jokes at us in an infectively enthusiastic way. Some of the Carl Sagan passages Ince picked out were beautifully sad and read with such deliberation and thought – I’d love Robin Ince to do a Carl Sagan audiobook. There was a great contrast between his reading of Sagan’s take on the afterlife and a rant about the “medium” Joe Power, who for all intents and purposes is a charlatan. He was also joined by several guests: a musician whose name I’ve shamefully forgotten; Simon Singh (libel law Simon Singh), who talked about The Big Bang, and Matt Parker (talked about maths and death). Parker did give my favourite of the Fringe: if you are in the 14-29 age group, you are statistically more likely to die in the next hour and a half than win the UK lottery. FACT! I really liked this show, despite a lot of the more complicated science going a bit over my head. My brain felt thoroughly enriched.
Part 2 (featuring Bo Burnham, The Horne Section, Oxford Imps, Laura Solon & Josie Long) to follow...
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