The Tron
Aug 2-13 & 15-27 (13:35)
Hinc Illae Lacimae
Edinburgh Fringe Venues are famed for the breadth, scope, and erm, ‘depths’, of their variety. The performance space at The Tron, at Hunter Square is notable for being at least three floors below ground level, there is certainly no ‘Green Room’, intimidatingly low ceilinged, dark to a degree of spiritual isolation, and possessed of a highly unpredictable air conditioning unit with a particularly teeth grindingly shrill whine to accompany it’s sporadic and spontaneous performances. It’s played host to numerous comic luminaries such as Mick Ferry and Doug Stanhope, however none of these performers have had the distinction of incorporating every one of these aspects into their set, unlike the supremely versatile Ian Smith
Due to the lack of green room, Smith announces himself onto ‘stage’ from the back of the room, and, riffing on the uniquely curious situation (Where one is performing stand up in a setting more akin to The Edinburgh Dungeons) instantly draws laughs from the large Monday lunchtime audience and thus spends the night 2 or 3 minutes anonymously bantering from the gloom to expanding ripples of laughter in this comedy immersion tank. He’s got skills.
He’s also ‘stressed’. This is not the standard array of comedic irks, and the windmills he tilts at range from being bullied by puddings and punctuation, phonetics, Imodium, and over-sharing hotel staff. He also covers some objectively tough subject matter for a lunchtime crowd, with scatological references (literally) sprayed throughout the set. This is no issue though as also has charm in abundance, each one of the interlinking anecdotes, which hold together his flights of fancy, met with ‘awws’, ‘oohs’, and ‘oh no’s!’ Of as significant empathy and enthusiasm as the laughs and cheers which roll continuously like a Bach’s canon for, almost, the whole of the performance. The audience are invested. It’s, possibly, quite telling then that the only discernible moment in the hour where the audience was not entirely with him, was in response to the only ‘dick joke’ of the set. It wasn’t a bad dick joke, and certainly not as visceral as a ‘shit the bed’ bit which unfortunately conjured up mental images of a brown Slimer from Ghostbusters but produced hysterics and conciliatory groans in equally loud measure.
It is a larger (60+) crowd for a Monday lunchtime than I’ve seen for many 7PM Friday shows in this venue, and they were partisan and passionate in their commitment to their time with him, throughout. He was close to selling out at this early stage of the festival, and given his followings very clear love for his deeply human, constantly engaging, and occasional Spike Milligan-esque patter, you’ll be lucky if you manage to squeeze into one of his perfect lunchtime pick me ups.
Ewan Law
Mumble Comedy 