Edinburgh Fringe Diary 2024 – Part Two
Forget Covid, Jokes Are Like A Virus At The Fringe
If you want to take the temperature of comedy don’t stick a thermometer up its bum, just go to the Edinburgh Fringe. At a time when politics has never felt so febrile there doesn’t seem to be that much in the way of political content in Edinburgh at the moment.
Of course, once I tweeted this my timeline was filled with performers and PRs asking me to come to their political shows. So here’a a shout out to Raul Kohli, Sid Singh and Matt Forde (picture below by Matt Stronge) who are all doing their bit for satire. Still not as much as I’d expect, and of course there are others, but not as many as one might expect. I’ll be following up and keeping an eye out in the next two weeks.
It is interesting how themes emerge at the Fringe though. Over my first few days I came across three shows that all made jokes about Huel, the complete meal in a drink for people with busy, busy lives (look out for the very smart Bella Hull, or should that be Bella Huel?). And when I tweeted this another comedian replied to say that they’d have to retire their Huel routine, so it’s clearly a Thing.
When you see so much comedy in such a short space of time at the Fringe unexpected themes and memes start to emerge as if the comedy world is some kind of giant single brain. A few years ago there were lots of joke about Crocs. And then after lockdown there were lots of jokes about sourdough and making your own banana bread of course.
Sometimes the jokes are less expected. I remember comedians riffing on the road safety campaign which pointed out that you would be less likely to kill a child if you hit them while travelling at 20mph. The gags tended to be a variation of “great, let’s go out and run down children while doing 20 mph…”
A few years ago I remember both James Acaster and Nish Kumar doing routines about British museums giving back treasures that had been stolen by the Empire. They were friends and both had funny, overlapping takes on the same subject, suggesting it was something they may have discussed over cocktails.
The Kumar/Acaster doubling up reminded me – and here’s one for the granddads out there - of Buzzcocks and Magazine writing different songs, Lipstick and Shot By Both Sides, using the same riff because the riff had been devised when Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto of the respective bands had been working together.
But I digress. I initially thought about writing this post because of a completely different topic that seems to be popping up at this year’s Fringe. In recent days I’ve come across three different acts who reference Titanic in their show. Sometimes when you least expect it. Sarah Keyworth uses the Titantic to explain what it means to be non-binary: “If I was on the Titanic I'd be allowed in the lifeboat but I’d be expected to row.”
Jordan Brookes (picture below by Sojo McKenzie) is doing a whole show about the ship (review to follow). Why so much interest in the Titanic? It’s hardly as topical as Keir Starmer yet I’ve come across more references onstage to it than I have to the rosy cheeked PM.
In fact I thought about this topic in bed last night and this morning before I got up I started reading reviews and came across a fourth show with a Titanic joke in it that I’ve not seen yet. It’s by Australian comic Dan Rath who I saw a few years ago and loved. It also touches on autism, another of this year’s recurrent themes. So I’ll leave you with his gag: “I was diagnosed on the spectrum because when I watched Titanic I empathised more with the boat.”
It’s still early days though. Maybe the shows I’ve seen which reference the Titanic are just – apologies in advance for this in case you haven’t seen it coming – the tip of the iceberg.
Three to See (apart from the ones above)
The Edinburgh Fringe runs until August 26. All tickets can be bought here:
https://www.edfringe.com/
Have you been to see any scottish or scotland based acts?