Pleasance Courtyard

Iraqi-Brummie Al-Habib scored great notices with the funny, slick musings of last year’s debut Fringe hour Death to the West (Midlands), a coming of age-style set about growing up with Iraqi heritage during Iraq War-era Britain, and also about being from Birmingham. For his second show he promises to offer something ‘more relatable for white British people’ – Stuck in the Middle (East) With You is about growing up as a child of divorce, though from the title one imagines his heritage will come into miore than a smidge.

Even by the fairly vague naming conventions of stand up comedy shows, it’s hard to imagine what sardonic Anglo-Russian Olga Koch’s new show Fat Tom Cruise will be about. Apparently it revolves around a story Koch has to tell. And furthermore, it’s a genre-defying show with immersive elements. In the world of solo stand-up shows this could mean everything or nothing, but Koch is an undoubtable pro and if she’s stretching her wings a bit formally then so much the better.

‘If you laugh it's comedy, if you don't it's performance art’ runs the undoubetdly laughter-worthy tag line Frankie Thompson’s new show, which not only points to how weird her work is but also to the fact that the genre is genuinely uncertain: 2022’s superbly weird Catts was classed as comedy; 2023’s follow up Body Show was in the theatre section of the Fringe brochure. For Horrible Things it’s back to comedy with an hour in which Thompson explores… horrible things, both real and conceptual. Assuming she’s not radically changed her MO, the key thing to remember here is that her performance is in no way done in a stand-up style, but rather involves her lip syncing disquietingly to a mad collage of vidoe clips, like a sort of Adam Curtis fever dream. A genuinely singular performer.

Andrew Doherty burst onto the Fringe with his superb spoof folk horror Gay Witch Sex Cult, before enjoying rather more tepid reviews from with last year’s Sad Gay Aids Play. Well when life gives you lemons, take brutal revenge: his latest show is a pointed swipe at the haters who gave Sad Gay Aids Show a three star review specifically (NB Time Out gave it a three star review). Doherty’s latest slice of amusingly macabre storytelling follows Felix Chatelier, a reviewer who accepts an invite to be guest of honour at a new fringe festival but soon finds creepy things happening ‘as he desperately seeks to answer the question: Why oh why did I only give Andrew Doherty three stars?’

Famously, Ahir Shah’s last Edinburgh Fringe show Ends came to the festival in 2023 as a work in progress that turned out to be so good that not only was its WIP status rescinded but it won the main comedy award that year. Whether or not newie Golden can top it – we know basically nothing about it so far – expect another personal but also cerebral tour de force from a master.

Sublimely quirky US comic Schaal hasn’t played the Fringe in years, probably because she’s been incredibly busy with a voiceover career that’s taken in major roles in Bob’s Burgers, Gravity Falls and Bojack Horseman (plus many more). She’s not exactly sticking around for long this year. But rather than straight stand up we seem to be getting an entire comedy play, starring Schaal and John Roberts (also of Bob’s Burgers). Exactly what The Legend Of Crystal Shell involves seems extremely ambigious: some descriptions say it’s about centaurs, but the current official Fringe blurb merely says it’s ‘about an extraordinary soul who has been hiding from the world because of a fantastic secret’. It’s very possible she’s a centaur… you’ll have to wait and find out.