Edinburgh Fringe Diary 2024 – Part Three

Rounding up the best of the Fest at the halfway mark

There comes a point in the Edinburgh Fringe, usually around the middle, which is were we are now, when themes start to emerge. Sometimes through sheer coincidence, sometimes through a strange kind of zeitgeist. Maybe social contagion. Or maybe like periods being in sync when women spend time together. So comedians in close proximity have routines about similar subjects.

One of the themes of this year’s Fringe is clearly autism. I’ve already reviewed Pierre Novellie’s eloquent book on the subject. He is now doing a show up here which I’ve not had time to catch. But brownie points to his marketing team, they’ve pasted ads for Why Can’t I Just Enjoy Things? on the walls of the Monkey Barrel venue where Larry Dean is performing a show about his recent autism diagnosis.

In Dodger (Monkey Barrel, ****) Dean artfully threads together his diagnosis with his relationship with his ninetysomething grandmother. Dean explains how he finally went for an autism test after his current boyfriend suggested it might be a good idea. Dean finally succumbed, ruefully noting that numerous ex-boyfriends had suggested the very same thing.

Dean is very funny explaining his traits, from masking – trying the pass for ‘normal’ – to echolalia, copying other’s speech patterns and even their accents. He is very much on the lower end of autism, a ‘Level One’, and he has the certificate to prove it, although this doesn’t even get him a blue badge so that he doesn’t have to pay for parking.

Funniest of all, however, is when Dean (pictured above, by Matt Crockett) talks about looking after his Nana who has dementia. What with his autism and her “time hopping”, thinking she is a teenager, it is a scenario ripe for comedy and trust me, Dean squeezes every last drop of giggle juice out of this situation. He’s had an Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination before, this could land him another one. High energy comedy at its finest.

Stuart Laws also talks about his autism diagnosis in Stuart Laws Has To Be Joking (Monkey Barrel, ****). Laws is one of the most prolific comedians on the circuit, doing gigs, making films and even attempting to break the record for beer mat flipping. But these are not necessarily signs of his autistic behaviour, they just underline that he is someone with a huge amount of creativity bursting to get out.

Like Dean Laws also talks about masking and difficulties maintaining eye contact, but he has a very different comedic style. This is more low-energy absurdist, surreal comedy, with a flat delivery (in a good way) that echoes the late, great Sean Lock. Maybe Laws’ skill at making unlikely links or conceptual leaps is an autistic trait. Maybe his obsession with visiting more continents than anybody else in the room is a sign of autism too. There’s also a great gag about his trademark gilet that has very little to do with neurodivergence from what I can tell. He is just naturally funny.

When I filed my first Edinburgh diary last week someone responded by asking me if I’d seen any Scottish or Scotland-based comedians. I assume they were suggesting I was ignoring local talent. In fact the first review I ran on beyondthejoke.co.uk was of local rising star Connor Burns. I’ve also seen Larry Dean (see above) and earlier this week I popped out at lunchtime to see Eleanor Morton’s Haunted House (Monkey Barrel, ****).

Morton (pictured above by Trudy Stade) grew up in Edinburgh and at the outset this looks like it’s just going to be a tourist-friendly show referencing lots of familiar Edinburgh landmarks, such as the ghost tours. Candles and atmospheric lighting as well as her white Victorian frock lend proceedings a spooky vibe. There are plenty of neat gags about Edinburgh, the Fringe, a mix of in-jokes and jokes-for-everybody-from-everywhere told in an assured, breezy style.

But as the show progresses it takes on a genuinely darker tone as Morton talks about sexual assaults at the Fringe, male predators who return year after year and have never been stopped. Morton doesn’t name names but refers to these men as being the real monsters that haunt the surrounding streets. It’s an unexpected gear change and alongside the comedy there is also a genuine jump scare. I’m not sure how well this show would travel, but in the dank confines of a basement room in Edinburgh’s Old Town it certainly packs a punch.

Sian Davies has made a name for herself in recent years as the driving force behind Best In Class, a really important organisation helping to support working class comedians break through at the Fringe. She has also been building up a name for herself as an excellent gag writer. There are a number of zingers in her current show, Band of Gold (City Cafe, ****) that could easily figure in the Dave Joke of the Fringe lists next week.

In her show she knits together top quality gags and winning anecdotes, ranging from stories of her divorce and ending up with custody of the dog even though she is not a dog lover to the bizarre set of circumstances which resulted in her face being tattooed onto a random stranger’s body.

I posted on X during the first week of the Fringe that there wasn’t much political content, but there is certainly plenty in this set. Davies is a passionate socialist so it doesn’t take much effort for her to find major failings in the way the country has been run. Maybe there is a reason she is not so keen on the dog - could it be a secret Tory? Davies always finds a funny angle, whatever the subject, even when it comes to discussing the fact that adultery cannot be grounds for divorce in a marriage between two women. Bizarrely, UK law only recognises adultery as sexual conduct between members of the opposite sex. Just in case you were wondering, this is 2024, not 1824.

And while on the subject of talented working class comedians, Jack Skipper (pictured above, by Jiksaw) is definitely a name to watch. There can’t be many comedians on the circuit who left school at 16 with no qualifications and worked as a carpet-fitter before taking the leap into stand-up. Definitely none as impressive as Skipper.

In his debut full-length show, Skint (Pleasance, ****), Skipper fills us in on the story so far, from working class kid to family man, charting how life has changed over the years, particularly what dads are like, from being almost invisible to being very hands-on. There are inevitable hints of Micky Flanagan in his tale of bloke-done-good and also stylistic flashes of Kevin Bridges, the way he puts on voices and accents to add colour to his anecdotes.

But Skipper (pictured above, by Jiksaw) is clearly well on his way to finding his own voice. Even when he was working as a carpet fitter he knew he was different, a bit more sensitive than the other geezers.

He recalls one time when he was on a job and he was recognised from his viral clips and asked for as selfie. His mates thought, blimey, he must be a really good carpet fitter. I don’t know about that but he’s definitely a really good stand-up, He used to get reviewed on Check-A-Trade, now he’s getting reviewed by the national press.

Read more Edinburgh Fringe reviews here.

The Fringe runs until August 26. Tickets and info for all shows here.