COMEDY

TIFF STEVENSON: MOTHER

Monkey Barrel 3 – Venue 515

August 2-26th

 5 stars

As a grinning Tiff Stevenson takes the stage in the Monkey Barrel venue, there is a strange calm that comes over me. ‘Mother’ is Stevenson’s ninth Edinburgh show, so I feel safe in the knowledge that there is an experienced captain at the helm to lead us through the next hour.

As an opening to ‘Mother’, Stevenson divulges a personal story from her earlier years – a bold few minutes that immediately hooks the audience. From there, seatbelts are firmly fastened as Stevenson goes on to create routines about some topics other comedians may shy away from: abortion, feminism, class. We hear anecdotes regarding the ‘Didn’t Happen of the Year’ Awards, what she really thinks of Starbucks coffee and her thoughts on what it means to be a ‘mother’. My personal favourite is a well-structured analogy about men who wear expensive watches in public.

As Stevenson speaks to the audience, she addresses the fact that this show is for everyone. There is a strong feminist message throughout, but she does not have anything against men. I believe speaking about this is one of the strengths of the show. It makes everyone more accepting of the things she talks about and the points she puts across through her jokes (unlike some of the trolls from her boisterous Twitter feed). It also creates a sense of likeability and trust in the comedian, things that Tiff already has in spades.

No question about it, Tiff Stevenson is one of the most important voices in comedy today. This show is one that warrants an audience for two reasons: it is laugh out loud funny and because the message that runs through the show is truly poignant and, by the end, left a few audience members quite emotional. A thoroughly entertaining show from one of the best comedians you’ll see at the Fringe.

COMEDY, THEATRE, PHYSICAL THEATRE

GARRY STARR CONQUERS TROY

Underbelly Cowgate – Belly Button

August 2-25th (not 12th, 19th) – 8:00pm

 (4 Stars)

A scantily clad man offering me Greek bread with dips as I enter Garry Starr’s show at the Belly Button was an odd yet welcoming experience. The man in question was Garry Starr, immediately making an intimate connection with his paying public (more on this intimacy later).

The actual show began in a very surreal manner. To the tune of “Holding Out For A Hero” by Bonnie Tyler, Starr bursts out from backstage in an Elizabethan ruff around his neck and a cloth, similar to a short skirt, covering his lower half. He rides a hobby horse around the stage whilst leaving the audience collectively confused.

There is a child-like innocence to Starr. His constant grin creates a warmth that spreads through the room, especially as he introduces his book “An Actor Pretends”. His slight mispronunciation of certain words is a constant source of comedy. His impressions of certain characters, flawless. However, it is his impression of a lost German explorer where the show takes a more mature turn and Starr’s signature comedy is…exposed, shall we say.

From there onwards, what has been seen, cannot be unseen. This is all in trademark, bizarre Garry Starr style. A couple of mishaps with his lighting technician did bring this show to a halt at a few points and this did become a bit grating if it was indeed intentional.

However, what is wonderful about Garry Starr is that underneath the character is someone who is actually incredibly clever. He definitely knows his stuff when it comes to the intricacies of ancient and modern-day theatre and how to engage an audience. The character frames his show as ‘drama masterclass’. I must admit, the theatre student in me was recognising a few techniques that I had learned along the way, which was lovely to see.

Coming out of the show, I feel like I had gotten to know Garry Starr a little bit more than I should have, having only met him an hour before. Although, overall, maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing.

COMEDY

ALICE FRASER: MYTHOS

Gilded Balloon Teviot – Billiard Room

August 2-26th (not 12th) – 8:45pm

 4 Stars

Around about forty minutes into her show, Alice Fraser gestures to a gentleman in the audience and lets him know that he looks like the kind of person who’s been into a McDonald’s toilet with a supply of Nad’s hair removal cream and has shaved his balls.

“I hope you’re not the reviewer!” she then exclaims, to a loud laugh.

Well Alice, I was the reviewer.

So here’s what I thought of the show.

It seems like Alice Fraser doesn’t know who she really is. She openly admits this. Her name, her birthplace, her sex…they should all be concrete staples of this lawyer-turned-comedian. But as she explores these elements of her character, they don’t seem so definitive after all.

Her surname – Fraser – is it genuine or just an Anglo-sounding word? Her sex – is she a woman or should she be labeled as something else? And finally, and most hilariously, her birthplace – real, or is she simply an actor? Does Australia actually exist? She explores this in an absolute note-perfect parody song about online trolls.

Fraser’s power in her comedy comes from her character. She appears as a genuinely lovely person whose irritation with aspects of life come through in small rants you would happily have with a friend as you put the world to rights. The comedy is not harsh, but the points are very well made. There is one parody song about feminism towards the end of the show that, literally, says more in 3 minutes that some comedy shows are wanting to say in an hour.

Alice Fraser lets the audience know that it is her father who reads and keeps her reviews. Maybe this one will cross his proverbial desk. ‘Mythos’ is a very enjoyable show that certainly will leave me with a quirky tune stuck in my head next time someone has a go at me on Twitter.

COMEDY

TITANIA MCGRATH: MXNIFESTO

Pleasance Courtyard – Above

August 2-25th (not 12th)

4 Stars

Nowadays, there are many instances of artists attempting to turn films, television shows and even the greatest hits of popular bands into stage shows. Some have been successful (the ABBA musical ‘Mamma Mia!’), some not so much (Harry Hill’s X Factor flop ‘I Can’t Sing!’). However, turning a satirical Twitter account into an hour-long show is probably the most difficult task of all. With other source material, there are established characters, plotlines, locations, songs; with Titania McGrath, there is one composite image, controversy and a whole lot of ‘wokeness’.

I must admit, when first hearing that Andrew Doyle was taking his Twitter creation to the Fringe, I was a tad worried. The satire of the Titania character is something that many in the ultra-left, hyper-woke faction of society tend not to understand fully. In a pre-Fringe article for ScotsGay, I wrote that in today’s society, comedy is something that divides people. I believe that there is not a show at this year’s Fringe that will divide people more than ‘Mxnifesto’ (spelled with an ‘x’ because the original spelling is offensive, as it contains the word ‘man’)

For me, I loved the show. Titania (played by the fabulous Alice Marshall) appears on stage as a god-like cult figure, standing in the spotlight that she believes she deserves. She explains at the start of the show that she is here to promote the manifesto for her new political party “Shame UK”.

The brilliance of the show is that it is not simply a bunch of tweets read out for an hour. The clownish character of Titania is actually given some depth. This mouthpiece for the extreme left is fully formed in front of our eyes. And to be honest, it’s a little scary. There are small interludes in the lecture in which Titania grapples with major issues such as white privilege (the man beside me was dragged up on stage during this piece due to looking “a little bit homeless”), unique ways to deal with a baby Hitler and even a rant about her own birth.

This depth, however, causes a slight problem. The show occasionally crosses the fine line from satire to parody. The Twitter account itself is a clever satire. We read it in a way that is unique to us. We recognise those ‘Titanias’ in real life: those born with a silver spoon in their mouths, the ‘gap yaah’ students, those who intentionally take offence to statements just because it comes across as trendy. However, as the character of Titania becomes more three dimensional, there is a slight tendency that the material, itself, begins to lampoon Titania as a person, and not so much those groups she is trying to satirise in the Twitter account.

As the show drew to a close, there began a Q+A section, in which Titania pointed at me and demanded I ask her a question on her lecture. She seemed to mishear my original question and began to answer one she thought more important. This I believe sums up the experience. You can come in with opinions different to those of Titania – from alt-right to extreme left. However, after Titania is done with you, you will leave laughing and with a new appreciation of what it is to be ‘woke’.

COMEDY

DAN SODER: SON OF A GARY

Underbelly – Dairy Room

August 1-26th (not 12th) – 7:15pm

2 stars

This is Dan Soder’s debut year here at Edinburgh and I wanted to go in fresh, so purposely did not watch any of his stand-up online before seeing him live.

He strikes me as the “funny guy in a group of friends”. However, in this debut, he doesn’t fully live up to that image.

He introduces himself to the stage as someone who is “more American than monster trucks and food with steroids in it”. An instant turn off. It implies generality, blandness, an overall insipidness that doesn’t get me at all excited for the hour ahead.

Let’s get to the show itself. There are some interesting ideas in Soder’s material. You can tell he’s not new to this game. However, these ideas tend to fall by the wayside in favour of other, more broad gags to please a wider audience. For example, a potentially brilliant routine about ‘levels of dead dad’ is unfortunately not explored as much as hoped.

Soder’s comedy seems to rely on different elements to make the show funny, be that weird noises, strange accents to accentuate the punchlines or drug-related stories. Watching the show, I felt that there were very few times when we really saw Soder’s personality shine through – it would be nice to see something definitively unique about him and his jokes.

It was disappointing that many times throughout the show he kept looking to the audience for validation that he was actually getting laughs. Obviously this is the case for most comedians, but with Soder, it felt a little desperate. Did he even believe his own material at this point? It was hard to tell.

Maybe it’s a cultural difference, maybe it’s just not my type of humour. However, it’s a disappointing debut overall.