Sweet Venues – Apex Hotel Grassmarket 7th – 20th August @ 7pm
Material:Delivery: Laughs:
Within the walls of The Apex Hotel in a small dark room there are a cluster of chairs awaiting the arrival of the unsuspected audience for the fabulous and flamboyant Bentley Browning’s “Tinder Rehab”. With loneliness at an all time high (according to some people), there couldn’t have been a better time to land at the 70th Edinburgh Fringe with a show on how to find Love. With more people taking to online dating nowadays, Bentley would like to educate you in the art of online seduction or as some may call it, match-making. With an over excited and zestful audience, Bentley starts to take us on his journey of love and laughter. Tapping into the emotional areas of the human spirit he unleashes an avalanche of side-splitting jokes. Like a worm on the end of a fishing hook, he tempts and teases you with intimate questions about your sexuality and availability.We know where this is going !!!
“Tinder Rehab” is a show of comedy sketches and stand up. Delivered in a smooth, fun way you, feel the days stresses suddenly disappear, like a puff of smoke they are gone. To think he could have been a priest on Tinder looking for S.P.E.R.M. but thankfully he decided to entertain us at this year Fringe instead. Be aware, this show brings you into the act, quite literally. A single woman having her deepest dirtiest thoughts monitored and read out, a couple looking for love and me, a mime actor getting ready to go on a date. Genuis !!!!! Interactive shows are great and audiences always want to feel part of it, nothing better than being put on the spot. We have all experienced hurt, pain and disappointment in relationships, so allow Bentley Browning and his Tinder Rehab show to tickle you where you have never been tickled before. You may laugh, scream, chuckle, sneer or even cry but one thing is for sure, you will find love after this show. Well scripted, delivered and preformed this is a wee gem of a show and should not be missed.
Sam & Tom are a couple of quirky sketch comedians in their mid-twenties, whose youth bubbles up through their fresh-faced banter like an alka-seltzer in a flagon of whiskey. Sam, with his gorilla swagger, & Tom with his slightly deranged boy-next-doorness create a sketch duo that is proper out there… somewhere. ‘Let us crack on with one of our stupidest bits,’ they assert, & off they go into something like a Saturday morning kids show for adults; silly, unpretentious & a wee tornado blowing around every part of the room &which whips us all into the wind-swirl. In a recent interview with The Mumble, Tom described their sketch creation being ‘suggestion-argument-compromise-frolic,’ & the latter word is the key to the show, as their dandified delivery blazes a trail of high-jinks, fly-japes & extreme jollity
The nuts & bolts of their giggletastic landscape is a tour through time in the mould of Bill & Ted’s Excellent adventure. Their weird, alternate universe is akin to comedy quantum mechanics, their thought-processes leaping about all over the shop like fun-charged atoms. The boys can act as well, & the whole montage is stupendously daft, but clever as hell as these mind-swapping mentalists pick up their muse, shake it about like a rabbit in a labrador’s jaws & toss the poor thing, screaming, into the room. Starting brilliantly, then descending (or ascending I’m not quite sure) into something I’ve never quite seen, Sam & Tom have created something modern for the Fringe, & also something funny – an intensely ludicrous sketch-comedy-cum-play that is undeniably entertaining.
Playing host to Bunker Two in the Pleasance Courtyard is the gentle giant of comedy storytelling Kwame Asante with is debut show Open Arms. This Doctor of comedy slides onto the stage with ease and grace proceeds to welcome you into his world of smooth-laced stand up comedy. With his origins in Ghana, this 6ft3 lad from Kent has had a pretty mixed up time of it and would like to share his incredible experiences with us. Take a seat and be prepared to be amused. Variations of somewhat delicate subjects are turned into a witty and hilarious bundle of side-splitting jokes. Approaching many topics that other comedians would never dare to relay, we learn a thing or two. He appears to have this natural feeling about him that allows us easy access to his universe of fun and laughter. Being a Doctor from 9am to 9am daily must take its toll on some, but for Kwame its like a hunting ground for material. People say the funniest things to Doctors and they’ve ended up in our laps at Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In a recent interview with the Mumble, Kwame described his show as being a retrospective of;
The last three years, which has seen me graduate medical school, leave my family and home in South East London, and move up to Birmingham to settle into my new life as a junior doctor. It’s packed with funny stories, unexpected twists and hard-learned life lessons.
Observations of life’s grueling & mundane chores are utilized and diverted through different channels of humour . When right or wrong decisions are made the explosive consequences can be overwhelmingly funny and Kwame will be there to help you get through it. With political references to immigration, Black African Vampires, Welsh Dragons, race and a black Hitler, Kwame certainly likes to explore the unknown and tease his audience like puppets on a string. He even allows you to go out for fresh air to prevent anyone from fainting. What a gentleman !!!! This stand-up comedy will warm you and tickle you. Cheerful, pleasant, and fun to follow, the show glides along like a hovercraft on water arriving at your destination happy and content with the what you have witnessed.
Last year, fledgeling Geneva Rust-Orta broke her Fringe cherry with her The Second Funniest Jew. She’s back again this year with her pal Ian Levy in tow, after returning to her native land & working the San Francisco comedy scene. Bringing Ian with her, he begins the hour with a classic American comedic patter, delivering droll humor as he clutched his microphone like a last pay check. Surreal in substance, the fellow even made an animated joke about Neville Chamberlain, which was completely unexpected & kinda funny. A warm & wonderful youthful comedian, his presence in the basement of the Nightcap, & his accented speech, really did cast a spell over proceedings & transport us all to the comedy nights of ‘Cisco.
Then the awesome wee bunny that is Ms.Rust-Orta came to the stage & I could immediately feel the passage of a tear. She began so much slicker, giving rather much the same material as last year she has refined her presence & delivery & was a joy to watch. In a recent interview with The Mumble Geneva gave us the low-down on her developing set;
I’ve tried to move on from dark bitter humour to dark playful humour. There are still holocaust references and a lot of sexual frustration in my material but I also think I’ve loosened up. My show is about feminism, sex, and Jews and how I have known them in my life.
Geneva explores her muses with astonishing brutality; & even when she says stuff about the Nazis & the Holocaust – stuff that always sits uncomfortably with an audience – she simply plods on determined & unflinching. By the time she unleashes her uberfilthy, ridiculously ribald material of a sexual nature, you’re like its OK Geneva, we’re with you. Just towards the end she began to falter again, as if the nervous ghosts of 2016 had finally tracked her down, but this was a huge improvement on her previous stint at the Fringe. As for her future, you can’t rush genius & an idea of her final image is beginning to take shape on the roof of the Sisteen Chapel.
Hello Adrienne, so where ya from & where ya at, geographically speaking?
Brooklyn, NY
When did you first realise you were, well, funny?
I made a joke when I found out my parents were getting a divorce. I was 6. Dark sense of humor started early!
What are the differences between the UK comedy scene & that of Australia?
The accents?
What does Adrienne Trustcott like to do when she’s not being funny?
I have a really deep affection for mowing the lawn on a tractor and that takes up more of my time than I ever would have imagined. But listening to and going to see music is a biggie. When I’m not on the lawnmower.
You’ve been washed up on a desert island with a solar-powered DVD player & three films. Which would they be?
Waiting For Guffman., Dr. Strangelove and Days of Heaven.
What is it about performing live you love the most?
Oh god, I may hate myself in the morning, but I feel like every time you go onstage, you learn a shit ton about yourself. But maybe that moment, after you’ve been doing material that you want to work so badly, but it isn’t quite and that moment in a show when it works and it’s usually because you did something that totally surprised yourself.
You are bringing your show ‘One Trick Pony’ to the Fringe this August, can you tell us about it?
Well, I brought it here before. I really loved the show but it got really bad reviews – from everyone! And so I thought a lot about it and made it better and that feels like what a fringe should be about – the possibility of failure and improvement. It’s a better show now, so I guess I have to thank those harsh critics for that proper bashing I got last time!
Why Andy Kaufmann?
I was always sort of thrilled and terrified by him. And, I love how hard he is to categorize him – he’s thought of as a comedian but I reckon he was really a performance artist. I’m thought of as a performance artist and sometimes I think of myself as a comedian. So I’m playing around with those definitions as well as, the way he did, with ‘what’s funny’. Plus, some of his material is that kind of material that you connect to so deeply and almost have a sense of mourning because you will never get to do that material – like you love it so much that it’s hard to bear that it isn’t yours! I also play around with stealing his material. Since you can’t really do it. But maybe you can?!
Can you sum up your show in a single sentence?
This show is a raucous ridiculous comical (and literal!) wrestle with what’s funny, stealing material, yourself, your audience and your critics.
What emotive responses would you like from your audience, & what do you expect?
I like them to laugh a lot in the room and think a lot at breakfast the next day. I don’t mind if they feel squirmy too.
How do you find performing at the mega-mash-up that is the Edinburgh Fringe?
There is nothing like it in the world and one of the best preparations for how to survive the life of an independent performing artist. It’s like a hilarious, wet, boozy boot camp.
Joe Jacobs is cool, a ‘Jewish comedian’ in the loosest sense of the term – he barely scratches his faith – Joe is a dapper wee fella whose company well worth investing in this Fringe. Unpretentious AND funny is a difficult combo, but Joe’s got the blend just right, as attested by a wee guffaws & the snorts of understanding that erupted from a crowd made comfortable from the onset. Joe has his really easy, watchable vibe, who stalks his comedy like a panther at night, pouncing on the punchlines with a droll & almost smirky smile. But like I said; its cool, he’s cool… we’re all cool.
Joe is a confident cookie, who snippets his set with short, snazzy musical interludes such as impersonating a garage MC. Her also offers smidgefuls of social commentary, comparing life to Panini sticker albums, the Nazis to Edinburgh reviewers, & at one point shines a mucky telescope on the Dark Web. He also has a decent sense of humility, admitting the comedians’ life isn’t all that lucrative, but laughs it off & just continues with his set, cos the guy just loves to be up there, you can tell, & that makes a big difference when draping a room in comedy covers. There is a certain universality to Joe’s comedy, & if my dad was with me, he’d say ‘I really enjoyed that, Damian,’ which translates into the Mumbleverse as four stars.
Hello Marina, so where are you & your sister from & where ya at, geographically speaking?
MARINA : I live in LANDAN! Me and my sister live by Ladbroke Grove in a flat together. People say ‘is that hard living together and working together?’ And the answer is no… its very convenient.
You graduated from the prestigious Theatre and Clown school, Ecole Philippe Gaulier, last year. How did you find your studies? MADDY : Studying for two years at that school was without a doubt the strangest but best thing i could have ever done in my life so far. The way Philippe teaches you comedy and theatre is completely original, painful but can be absolutely beautiful. He doesn’t hold back on what he thinks unless he is really quite impressed. And impressed at his standards is very high. You go through total crisis all for that one moment where he says ‘Bon… it was ok’ which is enough to celebrate for 3 days straight. He taught us that within all theatre is a game. It is about impulse and play and being completely in that moment. This is something that I have in mind in every performance I do now. The biggest lesson you can learn there is how to fail, how to take massive risks on stage and how to have to confidence to lose your ego to try and be vulnerable on stage. The more you show that side of yourself the funnier you become. I had some serious ups and downs at the school! I could go on forever about it but I think my greatest moment was in the characters module when i failed and failed again but refused to give up so changed costumes 4 times until i landed on a completely insane american prom queen called Sandy Mayonnaise to which Philippe said “Bon.. this character is good” I almost died.
You have performed in three films coming out the end of this year, can you tell us about them? MARINA : Yes one is called ‘Breathe’ in which I play a woman called Pamela who doesn’t know if she should marry her partner because he’s ugly. For reference I eat cake in the scene. The other I’m an alien who fists a punk up the a-hole to split into my male identical twin. This is called ‘How to talk to girls at parties.’ it is not a porno. The other was a Shakespeare ‘A Caribbean dream.’ I was playing Hermia and it was filmed in Barbados. Scary because it was my first ever professional experience but there were turtles so I was ok.
Why comedy, what is it about being funny in front of other people that makes you tick? MADDY : I started performing when i was 11, but for some reason was ALWAYS cast as the jester, joker, idiot characters, once i was cast as a girl who just starred at a wall and drooled.. Typecasted at a young age i guess, but it definitely came from my enjoyment of playing those characters. Doing live comedy is completely addictive. Its the fact that anything could happen at any time, you are showing a side of yourself that you wouldn’t ever do anywhere else in front of an audience and its your job to make them laugh! And when it works there is absolutely nothing like it.
What is the creative process behind writing your sketches? MADDY : We definitely work best when we have an upcoming gig or show. I usually book us into a night and then we make it our mission to do something completely new for it. The pressure makes me work! Me and my sister have been playing silly characters since we were foetuses. We used to constantly play character ping pong in the back of the car and would impersonate everyone we saw.. Nobody was safe. We have a huge list of characters we like playing so we usually write the sketches around them, put them into a world or a situation and go from there!
How funny is Christmas at your house? MARINA : It’s pretty funny. We have stockings still even though all of us are adults. Last year santa put a fiver in each of our stockings. Best Christmas ever! I once got my mums face and two of our cats faces printed onto individual stuffed pillows for Christmas. She was disturbed and slightly disappointed.
You are bringing SIBLINGs to this year’s Fringe, can you tell us about it? MARINA : Siblings is about two real life sisters who let go of any flicker of dignity and attractiveness to make the most ridiculous character comedy show, plucked from their inner childhood minds. One drama school graduate and one clown school graduate, one short, one tall, one funny, one not, both absurd performing characters from all over the globe. We want people to leave and disco HARD because they are so pumped and happy after seeing two fools bring destruction to the stage. The audience get to see what Maddy and I create in our very childish, dirty and absurd minds. We’ve found people weeping in the audience or their mouths open in complete shock which is what I love the most. It’s an unpredictable show but always free and funny so it’s a hoot!
How are you finding the Fringe so far? MADDY : Hectic… Doing a show at 11:30pm everyday does take some getting used to, i havent seen sunlight in a while.. But i love the fringe, for me the greatest thing is being able to see comedy constantly. I have seen some fantastic stuff so far and i will continue on! I come to the fringe every year and this is my third time performing in it so I am a big fringe fan.
How do you two know when you have done a good show, & how do you feel MADDY : You know you have done a good one when you can feel the audience are totally on your side, when they are with you all the way through and are finding it funny of course! There is a specific feeling you get when you know you have done a good show. You sort of want to fall to your knees and scream YEEEEEESSSSSSSS to the lighting rig and you want to snog everyone you see.
What will you two be doing after the Fringe? MARINA : I will probably get back to auditioning for acting work but this time with extra SASS because I will have survived a month of the insanity of the Edinburgh Fringe.
Hello Sam, so where ya both from & where ya at, geographically speaking? SAM : Tom and I are both from small autonomous communities based around the outer ring of the spaghetti junction. We didn’t meet until we both got through to the finals of a local Scout’s talent show. My talent was imitating the call of a barn owl, his a great grey. We formed a friendship several weeks later at a cub’s reunion meat ‘n’ greet.
Hello Tom, so when did you first realise you were, well, funny? TOM : When I was performing to an end-of-year school assembly. My material consisted of one joke written my me, several recycled from ChuckleVision, and a burlesque dance Grandpa Simpson can be seen performing in hit computer game Virtual Springfield. Went down a storm, and my ideal audience remains Year 4 parents.
Where & when did you & Sam meet? TOM : My first memory of Sam is the day I earned my bear-baiting badge from the Scouts. “Well done, sir!” he shouted. “Thank you, friend,” I replied. “Would you like to form a double act together and perform at the Edinburgh Fringe?” he asked. “What?” I replied.
What is it about performing live you love the most? SAM : Performing is in my blood. Cut me and I bleed stage presence, O Negative. I have a rare blood type and a rare talent – the talent to want to cheer someone up if they’re having a bit of a rubbish day.
You are bringing your show Unrectifiable to the Fringe this August, can you tell us about it? SAM : At its heart Unrectifiable is a show about a talking puppet. However, that element didn’t test well in preview so now it’s much more about the double act, and there’s a lot of interesting ground there as well.
What is the creative process behind writing Sam & Tom’s sketches TOM : Suggestion-argument-compromise-frolic.
What other shows have you enjoyed this Fringe? SAM : Mr Jolly – Fooling A Part (11:15pm, Blundabus) is a fascinating show. He’s a real-life jester and noise-art performer who represents for me the true spirit of the fringe – subversive, bewildering, and something you won’t see anywhere else this year.
Can you sum up your Fringe show in a single sentence? TOM : The raucous and fun Sam & Tom play hide and seek, have an existensial crisis, and get five stars.
How are you finding performing at the mega-mash-up that is the Edinburgh Fringe? TOM : Pretty darn great, thanks! My problem is, no matter how many times I come up, I never see enough shows from a wide enough variety of voices and backgrounds, so I have to really knuckle down when I look through the brochure and address previous imbalances. As such, I’m only seeing improv this year, including during our show.
What does the rest of 2017 hold in store for Sam & Tom? SAM : Tom is taking a month out in September to go discover himself in Bali. He’s quite a spiritual guy and likes to de-toxify after the fringe. I just bought a lap-steel guitar from a charity shop, so I’ll probably be learning that.
This was the first time that I have seen Lee (aka Simon Brodkin) and I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Like most of us, I have sen glimpses of Lee previously when he was a younger version of his alter-ego Chav. He still comes across a wee Chav, but a bit more grown up now, so no short trousers. Bobbing along to the Pleasance Dome I was filled with a good degree of confidence that I was in for a few laughs for sure. I was a bit surprised by the size of the venue, & honestly thought it would have been in a bigger room, but the space was nice enough and gave the performance a very intimate feel, which was great. We were sitting just to the right of the stage, behind the glass divide in the bar; great seats, all-in-all, with a cracking view over the stage.
The lights dimmed, the spotlight shone on the stage, and there Lee was, ready to shower us in his banter. Certain touches did seem to hank back to the (young chav) days, but thankfully not that much. We’ve all grown up a bit now, & we have a new and more polished Lee in front of us who still gets away with his wee cheeky chappy persona. There seems to be a lot more going on these days in Lee’s life, and he duly updates us all on himself and his family; which was nice and a source of some decent material at points. Most of his jokes thankfully bounced off the crowd, who he used skilfully to get us all laughing at each other. Some of his audience participation was great, and one part especially saw a young lad in the audience get the biggest laugh of the night… and I reckon a bit of bother later on with his mum!
Overall Lee’s humour was on it, and his performance had a good mix of pace and energy. He is a seasoned pro and if you are looking for a few half-decent laughs, he is definitely your man as he mixes topical events, Scottcisms jokes and great one liners, all delivered flawlessly to rapturous applause. Lee was great, and controlled the audience well… there were a couple of people trying to heckle him but it would not be advised with Lee his wit is far too sharp and he doesn’t suffer fools lightly! The show flew by and the hour was gone far too quickly, which is always a good signal you’ve been having fun.
F*ck Me Like Dry vegetable is an intriguing title for a comedy show and I had no idea what to expect from the hour as the message came out from Mumble HQ. In the end it turned out to be a late night stand -up comedian named Matthew Harrison, who in a recent interview with The Mumble,describes his show as being;
About my many many years as a croupier in a London casino. I give the audience an insight into what really goes on inside a gamblers paradise and I don’t hold back. I thought of a few other names prior to this one. First was ‘Matthew Harrison Everyday I’m shuffling’ which had a nice ring to it. Then I thought of ‘The King Of Spades’ obviously a double entendre. Funnily enough the term spade (for a black person) wasn’t in use that much anymore. So basically because people became less racist, it ruined that title. So then I went with ‘F*ck Me Like Dry Vegetable’.
Matthew is a good performer & has a unique story to tell, giving us hilarious insights into what it was like working with gamblers. During the show we also learn the meaning of the title, while Matthew tosses vegetables into the crowd. He talked, too briefly I felt, about the addiction many gamblers are facing. He also brushed lightly into racism, making just some simple laughs out of it. With these serious topics, I thought Matthew could have given us more emotive comedy, & my heart was straining for him to do it – but Matthew & his material this Fringe are in too frivolous a mood. Still, what Matthew does give us is pretty damn funny and a good time rushes into the room the moment he steps onto the stage. All in all a grand effort, but with Matthew’s talent and experience, the final product could be have been a tad better.
Delivery: 
Laughs: 
Last year, fledgeling 
Geneva explores her muses with astonishing brutality; & even when she says stuff about the Nazis & the Holocaust – stuff that always sits uncomfortably with an audience – she simply plods on determined & unflinching. By the time she unleashes her uberfilthy, ridiculously ribald material of a sexual nature, you’re like its OK Geneva, we’re with you. Just towards the end she began to falter again, as if the nervous ghosts of 2016 had finally tracked her down, but this was a huge improvement on her previous stint at the Fringe. As for her future, you can’t rush genius & an idea of her final image is beginning to take shape on the roof of the Sisteen Chapel.
Hello Adrienne, so where ya from & where ya at, geographically speaking?
Hello Sam, so where ya both from & where ya at, geographically speaking?
Mumble Comedy 