Ah, the Edinburgh Fringe. The only place on Earth where you can go from watching a play about grief and loss to an a capella parody of Friends within an hour. There are thousands of shows to choose from across the festival’s three-and-a-half week span, which, as exciting as it is, can make it daunting to choose what you actually want to go and see.
Such is the nature of the Fringe that sometimes you’ll find the next Fleabag or Baby Reindeer (both of which began life as one-man shows at the fest), and sometimes you’ll stumble upon a stand-up comedian who couldn’t make a hyena laugh. That’s where we come in.
We’ve got boots on the ground in the Scottish capital, going to see as many shows as possible to tell you whether they’re worth your time. We already gave you a rundown of week one, but from stand-ups to magic shows, here are the top six shows we saw at the Edinburgh Fringe this week.
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Ania Magliano: ‘Forgive Me, Father’
Ania Magliano is almost a Fringe veteran already, and she’s only 26. Onto her third consecutive sold-out run of shows it’s worth catching her now just so you can say you saw her ‘before she blew up’.
Aside from bragging rights, you should catch Magliano because, in simple terms, she’s very funny. Time Out described the stand-up routine, in which she takes us through the painful process of moving in with her boyfriend, as ‘exquisitely constructed,’ and full of ‘seemingly casual self-negging dispatched with Olympian skill.’ If you fancy an evening of cringe-inducingly relatable comedy, this is the place to go.
Read the full review here.
‘Weather Girl’
The world is on fire. We’ve heard this before. We’ve watched the school strikes, and we’re all vaguely anxious about it all of the time – it’s hard to come up with an original way to talk about our dying planet. Weather Girl, however, excels at the task.
This eco-drama follows Stacey (Julia McDermott), a weatherperson on a local news station, as she becomes increasingly unhappy with her situation. According to Time Out the play ‘deftly moves between darkly comic and nightmarishly earnest,’ and, if you are somehow able to find a ticket despite the entire run being sold out, it’s definitely worth your time.
Read the full review here.
Sheeps: ‘The Giggle Bunch (That’s Our Name For You)’
The first time Sheeps performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, David Cameron was the Prime Minister and the iPad was a brand new invention. It’s over a decade since the now beloved trio debuted at the Fringe, and six years since their last appearance, but according to our theatre critic they’re as sharp as ever.
‘The Giggle Bunch’ is a victory lap for the Fringe royalty. An hour of silly, hilarious sketches are ‘marked by a dizzyingly clever deconstruction of our expectations,’ and, according to the lads themselves, this is their last hurrah, so catch them while you still can.
Read the full review here.
‘Joe Kent-Walters Is Frankie Monroe: Live!!!’
Joe Kent-Walters embodies the real beauty of the Fringe: his show is utterly bizarre and all the better for it.
In a premise fit for a sweaty midsummer fever-dream, Walters plays the owner of a club who has made a deal with Hell to maintain his club exactly as it is until he is dragged under himself. He wears Joker-esque face paint, does a lot of audience interaction, and puts on a show which ‘fus[es] something very relatable with something totally batshit.’ If you like weird, weird comedy, definitely don’t miss it.
Read the full review here.
‘Jobsworth’
Bea (Libby Rodliffe) is a PA. And a concierge at a nice block of flats. And she’s dog-sitting for her friend who is travelling the world. Needless to say, she’s got a lot going on.
‘Jobsworth’ takes us along with her as she juggles all of her responsibilities and all of the absurdity that ensues. Initially, it’s a romp about an anxious thirty-something making it in the big city, but it has more to it than that. Time Out says ‘at core it’s a play about the foolish belief that it is possible to make everything okay for other people if we give enough of ourselves.’ Funny, relatable, and perceptive, it has plenty of tickets available for the rest of its run.
Read the full review here.
Jordan Brookes: ‘Fontanelle’
Have you seen Titanic? Jordan Brookes has. And he’s seen the stage play, and read about the actual boat, and written his own musical after being disappointed in the real one.
Fontanelle is about more than the Titanic, but it’s mostly about the Titanic. You could describe it as quarter-life-crisis comedy, or just as weird, but either way it’s an hour with a talented, if eccentric, comic, and there’s not much more we can say without spoiling the best bits. Leave your expectations at home and enjoy watching Brookes master his craft.
Read the full review here.
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