A Mash Reporter live in Edinburgh? Its true!

Hello Steve, first things first, where are you from & where are you at, geographically speaking?
My home town is Sutton-in-Ashfield, just outside Mansfield in the East Midlands. I’m pleased that finally the East Midlands is getting some recognition. There was a long gap between Robin Hood and Torvill and Dean.

When did you first realise you were funny?
It took a while. My family were the kind of people who could laugh like drains if  someone broke wind. I thought that the funny gene may have skipped me but when I got to comprehensive school that’s when I found comedy. I used to do bits in the morning lessons and if they worked I’d do them again in the afternoon ones.

Can you tell us about your career as a BBC radio phone-in host?
I used to be the other kind, the music presenter. There are only so many times you can try to sound pleased that you’re playing the same songs again so I moved across and
speech-based radio is an exciting place to be now. Absolutely everything has become polarised. From Brexit, to straws via every other news story someone will be self-
righteously angry about it.

How did you get into live comedy?
I paid my way through university writing jokes for local radio morning DJs but I’d tune in and get grumpy about how they delivered them. Even then I realised you can’t really criticise someone;s delivery if you;re not willing to try it yourself. So I did. I started trying out my jokes at open mic nights and that’s where I got hooked.

You’ve got three famous comedians (dead or alive) coming round for dinner. Who
would they be & what would you cook; starters, mains & dessert?
OK, let’s go for Groucho Marx, Lenny Bruce and Bernard Manning and we can sit there while Bernard gets taught a thing or two about how comedy can be used. The food would be true to my working class roots. Prawn cocktail, fish fingers and chips and then Arctic roll. Portions for one, because all the other people there are dead.

You’re performing at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe; what are you bringing to the table?
It’s the first Edinburg I’ve done since landed the gig on BBC 2’s The Mash Report, so it’s been nice to have the as seen on TV part of plugging it. I think that means people may give you slightly more attention and listen to what you have to say so I came up with a show about how I think we can be better people. We all know the right thing to do really, we are just really good at finding an excuse to do the worse thing. Get rid of those excuses and we could all live together with happiness and peace. It means you’d have to find another hobby other than hating people and being angry about everything, so I realise it’s a tough sell.

Has making & performing this show made YOU a better person?
It really has. When you spot a habit in other people it’s worth checking to see if you do it too. It’s no fun finding out you’re just as guilty of these habits but no one should be happy with being a hypocrite. Part of researching this show was learning about confirmation bias, and hearing that the experts who study it still find that they do it even though they know all about it. It means that trying to be better is a non-stop struggle but I believe it’s worth it.

How are you finding the Fringe experience of 2019?
Wet and tiring, just as the Fringe should be. I get this mix of feelings where I wish I could live like this all the time; waking up writing comedy, doing gigs, plugging shows on the radio, enjoying the most intense version of the job, but I also realise I wouldn’t last a week into September and if I don’t get a solid two days of sleep when I get home I may never recover.

What have been the biggest changes since your first Fringe?
The numbers of performers has increased so much since my first run. The urge to perform outweighs the desire of audiences to see performances and seeing as you need at least 20 people for every show performers put on, there is a thin-spreading effect. I quite like it when I’m walking in the New Town area, getting my mind out of the Fringe for a second, walk past a shop and see it has a sign saying Venue 3,248 and they have gigs on in there.

You’ve got 20 seconds to sell the show to somebody in the streets of Edinburgh,
what would you say?
Hey look at this flyer, it’s the guy from The Mash Report doing stand-up about making the world a better place. Only slightly better, but don’t we need it? If the world isn’t a better place at the end of August, no refunds! What’s that? Yes, it does look like me, doesn’t it? He’s doing so well he can hire lookalikes to do his flyering for him.

What will you be doing for the rest of 2019?
Sleeping for at least two days when I get home. The week after we’re back with the next series of The Mash Report. And there’s also an exciting radio project which I won’t go into details about to make it sound all mysterious and in case I get sacked from it.

Better Than

Stand 2

Aug 2-25 (20:50)

Tweets by @mrstevenallen

www.mrstevenallen.co.uk

Laughing Horse @ Bar 50
Aug 1 – 24 (18.00)

Material:  Delivery:   Laughs:   Room:

At Bar 50’s Alcove we were treated to the conundrum of comical masculinity performed by Aaron Twitchen, a gay man with a hairstyle (a bit like Bjork’s) who also did circus work. I believe I may have inadvertently intruded on a no-press performance, but I hope I’ll be forgiven because I’d rather just think of myself as a punter with a pen. So what did I see? Well, Twitchen is an expert storyteller; with his small, closely-packed audience lapping it  all up. In fact ,you’d be equally ravished if you picked up the story from just about any moment in his set.

It seemed he had broken up with a long-time partner (a matter of months which according to Aaron was a long time in gay terms), so found himself going to Egypt for a getaway to mend his broken heart. He hadn’t gone alone, however, but had been joined on the venture by friends. He joked about his father, the fact that pyramids offer no shelter from the sun and that where he was in Egypt was in fact 300 miles from the pyramids. Alongside these hilarious stories came his take on the contemporary era, taking huge swipes at anything that interested him or that he cared about.

Twitchen feels that being gay nowadays could do without the Pride reputation that has been built up over the decades, that if we human beings could just figure out how to stand together we could bring about a revolution that could actually change the world. This was an engaging and good humored way of addressing dissatisfaction in the modern world and modern society and more importantly questions being asked as to who and what we really are or may be.

Aaron Twitchen was frank, bubbly and sincere about his feelings as he touched on issues relevant to us all; a very intimate show, which I spent hoping I wouldn’t be the next person he’d pick on, albeit charmingly. Ultimately optimistic, you felt you were being shown a brighter future and being encouraged not to ever give up. We were all rainbows that no-one would be able to stop shining. Oh, and he’s very, very funny!

Daniel Donnelly

Underbelly Cowgate
August 16th-25th (21:20)

Material:   Delivery:  Laughs:  Room:

Never have I seen as blistering an opening 20 minutes of stand up as I witnessed at The Underbelly this evening. Entering the upper cavern of Belly Button, Yacht Rock and dry ice fill the packed room. I’ve queued for a full ten minutes to get in and the buzz is as thick as the artificial smog drifting over the eager crowd. There is a real feeling that something truly special is about to occur. I’ve been a fan of ‘anti-comedy’ ever since I came across Andy Kaufman’s ‘Tony Clifton’ persona in the biopic Man on the Moon. An aggressive, washed up Las Vegas lounge act who made his name by being so obnoxious to the audience (often ‘plants’) that he would end up in fights, and screaming incoherent obscenities. So enter the stage Jack Tucker, a Noo Yoik Tony Clifton for our current day. He staggers on, dripping with coke sweat, eyes rimmed red from one Coors Light (or smoke machine effect) too many, and he launches his vice-like grip around the audience.

This is very knowing stuff. If Donald Trump possessed any self-awareness, or basic business acumen, he would be milking his moronity in precisely the manner that Tucker does. He rants about “Winners!” and “Losers!” he screams “Fake News!” as he is informed that his audience size is a touch less than the 900 he claims. The capacity is 200. His nods, winks, hand sniffing and pratfalls are tossed out like Miles Davis trumpet riffs, surfing on waves of the audience’s adulation. For we all understand that this is an act. It is, however, very much a double act. His incredibly talented Director, and Tech, toys with him through deployment of sound effects, with surgical comic precision. Initially employing them, literally, like a machine gun to punctuate every bad taste gag and improvised one liner. As the show progresses we notice our unseen performer toying with Tucker by delaying the honks, guitar riffs and ‘Whammo’ noises more and more. This is improvisation as high art, they are having fun, but it is all for the audience.

It’s not all visceral microphone assisted blowjob jokes, faux hack chat and trite observational comedy about the Weather Channel though. Around 20 minutes in he throws out two casually acerbic lines which prick at the hypocrisy of a Bojo ruled Britain retaining its sense of superiority over Americans having the President that they do. These are so subtle, and finely crafted, that unfortunately they seem to be lost in the cloak of clowning chaos he has cast over the audience. It’s around this point where the issues with the show begin to creep in. He has us so tightly wound, so ready for his onstage rock bottom implosion, which he has left us salivating for, that the middle section of the show starts to drag somewhat. He doesn’t up the stakes with his antagonistic behaviour, and he doesn’t start to throw out the snippets of humanity that are essential for his dénouement to work. So when it does inevitably come, after 10 minutes of circling that feels flat and repetitive rather than character developing, the pathos of the back story to this revolting beast feels forced. There has been no sense of increasing desperation, no shift in energy to the increasingly manic, which should come before he breaks down and gives us his sob story. Which is not to say that ‘The Sob Story’ itself is not incredibly well delivered. An astonishingly brave audience member lends the video camera on her phone to support a performance of, what I can only describe as, the most upsetting rendition of Happy Birthday I have ever partaken in.

This might seem like a minor quibble, but the essence of clowning is to be absolutely, and all, of the character. The mid set dip exposes a hole in the suspension of disbelief required for the audience to really commit to such an unpleasant character, and it almost defeats the purpose of the whole venture. Sob story cast aside, he jumps right back into bad ol’ Jack mode and has the audience in his sweaty, beer drenched bosom again. The show finishes on an incredible high and the obligatory standing ovation, for an hour of pure energy, is duly delivered. I laughed heartily, and the men in the row in front of me spent large portions of the show using their T shirts to wipe tears from their eyes. But I wonder if Jack would have had the courage to finish his set with the purely anarchist spirit of his erstwhile fantasy mentor.

As Andy Kaufman’s agent George Shapiro famously told him “You’re insane, but you might also be brilliant”. On this evidence, Tucker is just a hair’s breadth away.

Ewan Law

PBH Southsider
August 16-19, 21-24 (19:00)

Material:  Delivery:   Laughs:   Room:

Watching hundreds of hours of new comedy a year, there is nothing quite as pleasurable as discovering unpolished, glittering little nuggets of raw talent. This evening, panning in the Yukon-esque wilds of The Southsider, I found 2 such rarefied wee chunks of the golden stuff. I’ve not had as much time as during previous Fringe’s to check out acts performing in the now oft neglected PBH Free Fringe. In its heyday I would greedily snap up and consume their program as soon as it was released, scouring it for peculiar novelty clowning acts, club scene regulars looking for their big break, or former seasoned professionals delivering a swansong performance, somewhere in a pub off The Royal Mile at 1AM So it was with a genuine sense of excitement that I cycled up to The Southsider, to grab a cheap pint and a ‘free’ show. This was in essence a classic 2-hander, a pair of gigging mates teaming up to head North and try out their material on the hordes of arts fans and tourists that engulf The Athens of the North in August. Though unlike almost every other 2-hander I’ve watched, they took to the stage together, beginning as a double act. Here, as at the end of the show and during the highly entertaining middle section, they showed off their comedy personas with bravado.

Flood greets us first, embodying a confident Low Status performer. If that sounds oxymoronic, well, that’s the point. Low status is notoriously difficult to get right. But throughout the evening he delivered assured snippets of impressions, songs, and anecdotes deeply reminiscent of Ricky Gervais performing as Andy Millman in ‘When the Whistle Blows’. Except funny, very very funny.  A section covering well-trodden ground of ‘accents being misunderstood by machines’ was elevated by his commitment to the vocal gymnastics required to convey an impenetrable Midlands accent , whilst an impression of Stoke’s own wannabe Tom Cruise in Cocktail, generated so much laughter from Floods rubber faced buffoonery that he let it continue, hypnotically, for a full 20 seconds longer than he real ought to have had any right to. “I’ll just do this bit all night shall I?” he asked the crowd. The cheer they threw up created the perfect punchline for him to close the section on. It was a shame then that not all of his set landed as successfully as this. His material delivered ‘as self’ felt a little lacking in the absence of the facial comedy masterclass that we had already been served.. A well crafted, but stoically delivered, 3 minutes about being grown up enough to buy a cast iron sieve, and cocaine, fell to light titters. They wanted more of the Goon.

Blake on the other hand came jumping out onto the stage in a faux fur pimp jacket, effortlessly channeling a squawky, confident, ‘Cat’ from Red Dwarf. His set was the polar opposite of Floods, some very neatly observed, and original, material relating to his mixed heritage swam in daring territory. If you’ve ever wondered why people with mixed heritage ‘aren’t into BDSM’, Blake will duly educate you. You see he used to be a teacher, and his tales of experiencing racial prejudice from Vietnamese kids named Captain America were both boundary pushing, and highly original. Here though was the fly in Blake’s ointment, his delivery was a little too teachery. The initial bombast of his stage entrance gone once he kicked into his practiced routine. The crowd seemed unsure how to take some of the changes of direction, but the wonderful banter, and anarchic spirit, present in their performances when double teaming, weren’t quite there when they got into the scripted stuff. Both performers fed exceptionally well off the positive energies from the audience, but didn’t always seem quite sure how to switch the pace when sections didn’t land as well.

Those tag team moments though, well what a treat. They oversaw a mid-show auction, with a gag at its heart of beautiful simplicity, in which they again demonstrated an assured command of just how long to milk an audience response. Their closing song pleasantly portentous, as Blake clowned around playing a triangle, manic grin plastered  on his face and Flood, bashing away at his guitar and gurning  like the kid from This is England, on Ecstasy, blasted out “For now we’re just Adam and Blake, but you might see us on TV someday”.

 “Yeah” I thought to myself “ I think we probably will”

Give them another few years to craft their individual performances and hone the exceptionally wide variety of talents on display, or better still, go the whole hog and perform exclusively as a double act, and this pair will polish up nicely into 24 Carat Fringe regulars.

Ewan Law

Gilded Balloon Teviot – Wine Bar
Aug 15-21, 23-26 (15.10)

Material:  Delivery:   Laughs:   Room:

Its been ten years since Baba Brinkman premiered his Rap Guide to Evolution at the Fringe, since when he has maintained a high-profile international reputation. But a decade is a long time in the arts, & I was curious to see how his once-groundbreaking  style would fare in 2019. This year, his Guide to Culture is quite a piece. It relays an interesting and insightful philosophy where scientific rationalism meets street culture. It is in combination a history of rap, a hip-hop biography, and a social commentary of politics, sexual dimorphism, equity and equality.

This show is a well-researched and accessible academic analysis of culture, brought to us by a graduate of English Literature and hip-hop enthusiast. His rapping style is a long way from his gangster role models, while the educational content and simplified story telling might give the impression of a patronising schoolteacher, but by the end you cannot help but warm to his passion and openness. He certainly lives by the hip-hop maxim of “keep it real” – transforming an art form that he admits is difficult to appropriate into an engaging exposure of his intellectual interests and social commentary. His lyrics are a long way from the struggles of the streets, but rather a nerdy narrative of social evolution.

The problem with the show is that it is described as a comedy, but therein lies the rub.  There is a significant lack of well-crafted jokes and hard-hitting punchlines – the audience obviously found the content entertaining, but if hilarity is not the priority, why dwell in the comedy listings. However, the show itself is extremely well-written and tightly rehearsed, some of his verses are questionably simple yet his freestyles are undeniably impressive. Baba’s delivery was natural and engaging, and you can tell that he is purely in his element on stage, enjoying himself throughout with an infectious passion that spreads into all corners of the room.

Mat Boyd

Just The Tonic @ The Caves
August 16 -25 (17:30)

Material:   Delivery:   Laughs: Room: 

After that extended, satirical & realm-shifting opening, we enter the sun-kissed sierras of their sketches. Mark is brimmingly blond, Haydn is a non-accenting Welshman; they are both young & they fuse tremendously well – in a Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau kinda way. It is one thing to have designed a funny sketch, but it is another completely to possess the aptitude and courage to issue it forth into a possibly hostile room. But these guys are consummate performers with pinpoint timing, so its all OK. Of their nicely-length’d sketches, I love the way they sometimes rewrite each others’ pieces, a competitive collaboration which shows again how willing they are to think outside the box. My very favorite was the pub-quiz, where is utter’d the immortal line, ‘how many palms do you have to grease to get the Punic Wars?’

Damian Beeson Bullen

Laughing Horse @ Bar 50
Aug 1-25 (15.10)

Material:  Delivery:   Laughs: Room:

Sunjai Arif regaled us with sarcasm and quips as he made his way onto the tiny stage, in a tiny room at the Laughing Horse. If we were in any doubt about what the show, “Which Princess Are You” would be about, he immediately set us at ease by stating his love for Disney movies and more specifically, Disney Princesses. He got us involved straight away by asking which princess we thought we were and played a game to discover our inner princess, handing out tiny, not-that-well-made masks depicting said princesses.

The material for Sunjai’s show stemmed from his more than miserable search for love as a young teenager – quite some time ago now, but with a lasting effect on his psyche. He had used his love for the Disney franchise to try and change his younger life, promising himself a fairy-tale ending… but resulting in embarrassing and excruciating failure.

The show took one surreal turn after another as Sunjai – who was not a slender fellow – climbed in and out of tight leotards to play the role of Ursula, his heroine villain from the Little Mermaid, not to mention the beautiful Ariel herself. You have to picture him sitting there half naked with his long flowing hair and beard.  Yep – not pretty! He’d even made himself a cardboard cut-out of the famous Disney palace (yet another budget home-made effort) to put on his head to complete the Disney Diva look.

But the show wasn’t completely bonkers, in fact it even became a bit sad when Sunjai described his realisation that life didn’t really work out as it does for princesses in movies, causing him to lose faith in the heroes he loved so much. With his face half-hidden behind talcum powder, we realised that the comedy and the madness and mayhem was the only way to deal with the pain.

But there WAS a happy ending, as Sunjai charmingly gave us the joyful news that he was now happily married with kids, and told us that from the moment when they found each other, they just never let go. Which just goes to show that it doesn’t matter in the end what sort of princess you think you are. Good on you Sunjai, it was worth being a part of your crazy show, delivered with total wackiness and a great heart.

Daniel Donnelly

Just the Tonic at The Caves
Aug 1 – 25 (13.30)

Material:   Delivery:  Laughs:  Room:

Will Penswick is the creator of bobble-hat wearing Paetur Paetursson, a Faroese detective reflecting & refining the recent western adoration of Scandinoir. You can catch both man & character right now at the Edinburgh Fringe, & I strongly suggest you do so – its ‘free’ & its funny & it restores faith in the ability of the Fringe to bring the very best out of its performers. The show is called Nørdic(k), & what makes it so bloody special is that the ‘actors’ in the story are pulled out from the audience. It really works, for Will is a proper reflex ninja, with the ability to bounce off our spontaneous responses with a natural alacrity befitting his clear talent.

Paetur Paetursson is a bobby on the beat & also with the beat, being one of the Faeroe Island’s top DJs, the setting of which forms the background to the murder he has to solve. This one-man show is an easy & warm wonder – the narrative never slows, always quick to change scene & vibe. There’s a few dodgy puns toss’d into the mix, which do work as accoutrements actually, & overall Nørdic(k) is a slick & laugh-laden concept, simmering with Will’s energy & incredible confidence. His dulcet accent is also pitch-perfect, & to be honest the cleverly conceived script & the quality delivery makes Nørdic(k) a better spectacle than most theatrical offerings at the Fringe.

Dmian Beeson Bullen

Underbelly – Clover
August 14th -26 (21:30)

Material:   Delivery:   Laughs: Room: 

If you’re after a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, something to satisfy all appetites and have your friends and family walking out of a show with you smiling and saying, ‘I’m glad you chose that,’ get yourself along to Jon Long at The Underbelly. After my annual 2 week Fringe staycation, I was back at work and feeling knackered already. A 6am start did not help me in mustering up motivation to get myself back out and in the thick of it. So to call it fortuitous that I was off to review Jon Long, would be a serious understatement.

Long strolls onto the stage as relaxed as you like. He instantly starts bantering with the crowd, full of understated bonhomie and big-grinned charm. He is clearly a young man who does this a lot. As if proof were needed, he begins by sharing his tales of woe at the part-time job he has taken to fit around his gigging, at a waste disposal plant. This allows him to give himself the moniker of ‘Stig’ (of The Dump, not Top Gear), and this self-prescribed nickname fits precisely because of his broad appeal.

The demographics in the room are clearly displayed as the hour flies by. Each nugget of his set provokes a different level of laughter from every section of the room. Older folk laugh at the ‘Millennial gags’, the London crowd laugh at his sing-song tales of commuter hell, and I am in hysterics at his confessions of insecurity when attending his first Scottish Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. This is material that is sharp, well observed, and invites everyone to be part of the fun. A number of shows that I’ve been to in the last few weeks have suffered from too many niche, or geographically specific references. Our Jon is too seasoned to make that mistake. The songs he performs are both singalong catchy, and funny. I’ll confess to being usually deeply antipathetic to musical comedy. Tonight though, by the end of our troubadours toe-tapping numbers, I was singing along happily to each catchy chorus, as was everyone else in the audience.

And the crowd were with him from the word go, I took joy in observing the whole room continuing to clap after the lights went up at the end of the show. You see all comedy at The Fringe doesn’t need to be challenging, or controversial, or telling a deeply sad story. Long spends a pleasantly humilitous 2 minutes explaining why he didn’t fall into the pity trap of writing a heart-wrenching piece about his own addiction issues. Sometimes all you really want on a night ot is laughter, camaraderie, and a warm buzz in your chest when you leave the venue. This is why, when he finally gets into his ‘Save the Planet’ section, the audience is receptive, and it’s an approach that more activists should take. He gently pokes at the hypocrisy of armchair activists, and holds his hands up to his own ecological foibles. Just like Kermit, he gets that it’s not easy being green.

I had one critical thought throughout, and that is the speed of his delivery. When telling stories, speaking as ‘a character’, or singing, Long’s delivery is perfect. However there were sections where he was delivering to the audience as himself that felt churned out at far too high a words-per-minute count. A 4-minute section on The Maldives was almost completely lost to me as he rapidly fired out the words in a monotone, but nonetheless charming fashion. The overall quality of his material, and good will he bought from his audience from the off, compensated for this to a great degree.

As I left and started scribbling in my notebook I noticed that I was striding down the road with a spring in my step and a song on my lips, all thoughts of my early start at work again tomorrow deliciously absent as I bounced home. I was genuinely grateful to have spent my evening with Jon, I only wish that I’d brought some of my own friends and family along with me. I know that I would have had the pleasure of seeing a similarly nonchalant spring in their steps too.

Ewan Law

Just the tonic at Marlin’s Wynd
Aug 1 – 25 (20.05)

Material:   Delivery:  Laughs:  Room:

Just the Tonic at Marlin’s Wynd was another plush Edinburgh venue, relaxing and comfortable. Joining the Fringe’s usual array of stand-up acts, comes Stateside lady Naomi Karavani, who quickly launched in to a series of quips about herself and her life. This set the tone for a performance full of thoughtfulness, honesty and great jokes with cunning, funny punchlines. Her subjects ranged her life as a Jewish woman & beyond, experiences covering desires both met and unachieved – her father’s disappointment in her career as stand-up, for example, and her brother being arrested 30 times. She made me laugh out loud at the sheer irony of her father being more proud of his jailhouse son while berating Naomi for her comedy. It was light-hearted, but nonetheless struck you as a brave thing to do, this fearless determination to express herself without holding back.

Moving to topics such as drugs, archaeology and women’s liberation, sarcasm was her new ammunition as she took pot-shots at all of them. As she talked about her personal America Naomi Karavani took berating to an entirely new level. Her sarcasm was charmingly, well prepared and could only have come from a life vigorously lived and loved. Fresh, exuberant, playful and uncomfortably honest, she drew us into a properly constructed exploration of the joys of life, with all its hardships, all its ups and downs.

Daniel Donnelly