Marek Larwood

Tim Key's Luke & Stella

Laurence and Gus are Men In Love

The Fringe festival is so large, encompassing so many different acts and styles and performances, that it will take you over two years to see all the shows, if you watch them back to back. Therefore, to even begin to consider seeing a show a second time, that show would have to be something really extra special.

Laurence and Gus’s show is one of those shows. It is just truly brilliant. Rather than rushing through their hour, running with quick and briefly sketched scenarios of imperfect or uncommon love, they use their show to dwell on four different scenarios. These four tales of misconstrued and unconventional love are told, bookended either side with a counselling session dedicated to the best way to woo a lady. The four scenes are as different as they are entertaining. In one, two crusaders of the Knights Templar / Templar Knights are set the task of winning Queen Brigid’s hand in marriage, through a series of challenges that run over the course of nine years. In another, set in the trenches of World War One, an officer and a private, facing the final push and certain death, swap information about their different experiences with women.

Each situation is intriguing and engaging, pulling you immediately in to the thick of the action, and nothing ever quite turns out the way you expect them to. In between sketches are played various chat up lines, the quality of which produce responses so loud from the audience that they are often missed – for example "Yes, I am pleased to see you, but I do have a gun in my pocket".

Men In Love is a wonderful show, mixing romance and childishness, philosophical query and puerile nonsense, pure hearts and murky undertones. Both performers are word perfect and always right in the moment, and it really is worth taking a second look. Very, very highly recommended.

4.30pm, Pleasance Upstairs

The Black Sheep - The Joy Of Wine

Throughout the festival, people ask each other the same two questions – how many shows have you seen, and which one was the worst? People here do seem to enjoy dwelling on the darker and more negative aspects of the Fringe, enjoying each other’s disappointment or discomfort. And if disappointment and discomfort are the kind of things you’re looking for in a Fringe performance, then you should look no further than the Joy of Wine.

This is a one-joke performance stretched across an increasingly desperate and thinning hour. The premise is that this is a wine tasting evening being held in a church hall, run by the inevitably creepy and disturbing comedy vicar, with his side kick who is inevitably both stupid and a genius. They run through the various stages of wine tasting procedure – the spit or swallow joke doesn’t appear until quite close to the end of the show, even though you could feel it’s presence in the room from the moment you stepped inside – and even though you may well learn a few new terms, it is not worth enduring the hour of your life that will drag by so slowly you’ll wonder if you’ve become trapped in some kind of time warp.

The final nail in the coffin, and something that we didn’t take note of before attending the show, is that the final balloon, as shown in the poster advertisements, will also pop by the end. The glee with which this happens is matched only by the disgust on the audience’s face. Don’t go to see this show. Really, really don’t.

Spencer Brown

Through his high powered, high energy set, Spencer Brown begins most of his sentences with the phrase "I have to say…" or "Let me just say…" In Brown’s case though, this seems to be more than just a mere speech affectation or habit. It is virtually a cry for help, or a plea for permission to continue down the road in to the fantasy world he has created for himself, and at the same time an invitation for us all to join him. When he says that he has to say what it is he is about to share with us, it does seem to be the honest truth – the comedy is bursting to get out of him, and he has no choice but to obey the impulse.

Spencer Brown is a brilliantly energetic performer, never once stopping during the full hour he is on stage – even his little breaks for personal time seem to involve running or twitching. His constant movement is what brings his shows up an extra level, as he gurns like Jim Carey or spasms like Kramer in Seinfeld. He also has a brilliant habit of looking genuinely pleased when things are going well. Unlike most performers, you do almost immediately get the impression that he is really interested in keeping the audience happy.

At one point in the show, as he starts gyrating along to the opening bars of a song whose title we couldn’t possibly reproduce here for fear of destroying the brilliantly puerile punchline, he grins up at everyone and declares "Don’t worry, this will all make sense in a minute". And eventually, it does, despite your best efforts not to get sucked in to his crazy world.

8.25pm, Pleasance Below

Jeremy Lion’s Happy Birthday

Following last year’s Christmas celebrations, failed and frightening children’s entertainer Lion has returned, this time trying to prove his worth as a viable option for a children’s party. Using his own son (or at least the replica of his son) Baxter as an example of a child who would enjoy the party he has organised, and also picking a member of the audience to celebrate their birthday – whether they like it or not, Lion uses his hour as an extended audience to show the lovely ladies and gentlemen what they will get for their money.

Performers in Edinburgh quite often use their time and space as an extended audition for the telly or radio, and their slick routines and over rehearsed set pieces do begin to jar, so it’s a lovely relief to find yourself sitting in front of someone who appears to have absolutely no idea what he’s doing. Jeremy Lion stumbles his way through the show, producing ever increasingly inappropriate and frightening props to illustrate his moral stories and important childhood lessons. He assures his that Mr Shush the puppet, for example, always keeps the children quiet. That’s not surprising, and Mr Shush’s face and expression is now indelibly imprinted in our nightmares.

Jeremy Lion is a brilliant character, created and performed with astonishing clarity by The Consultants’ Justin Edwards. From the opening song that spells out his name ("M is for Murder", "Y is for Wine") to the closing tribute to his late father’s clowning routine, the degeneration of the show and the performer’s sanity is rapid and intense and hysterically entertaining. Jeremy Lion is a nightmarish creation, brilliantly observed and achingly performed.

5.50pm, Pleasance Upstairs

Stewart Lee

Review to follow

8.40pm, Smirnoff Underbelly, The White Belly

Epitaph

Review to follow.

Gilded Balloon Wine Bar

Barry Castagnola

The Importance of Not Being Too Earnest

Review to follow.

Pleasance Cellar

The Trap

Review to follow.

3.25pm, Pleasance Cellar

Simon Farnaby

Lessons Learned While Driving A Tractor

Review to follow.

5.20pm, Pleasance Hut

Gary Le Strange - Face Academy

Review to follow.

10.25pm, Pod Deco

Richard Herring

The Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terrace.

Review to follow.

8.30pm, Pod Deco

Bearded Ladies

It’s nice to see the ladies getting some sketch action this year, and a four part group of ladies all working together does bring a smile to the face of any reviewer already overexposed to continued parades of male sketch groups covering the same ground. These ladies in particular also have some very impressive details on their CV, having written for Radio 4 and Smack The Pony. Great things are expected.

Unfortunately, they’re not delivered. Beginning and ending on the most crassly placed product placement, sponsored as they are by a certain razor company specialising in a certain kind of razor for a certain kind of lady hair, we should have read the warning signs and left while we had the chance.

There is a very odd swing between the tone of the sketches in this show – one moment it’s lovely familiar Radio 4 overtones and tea with the vicar’s wife, and the next it’s all genitals and oral relief. This random lurching from one tone to another is not shocking, it’s just confusing, and it just doesn’t work. It would be more beneficial to chose one style or direction and stick to it, because otherwise things become very messy. In the end, it’s a bit like listening to your mum telling dirty jokes – uncomfortable, slightly embarrassing, and not funny.

The show proceeds with increasingly tedious sketches, starting on a premise that could be dealt with in one or two lines, but is instead stretched out over a few minutes with no good effect. The sketch with the lady who refuses to speak in anything but olde englishe is a good case in point here – it simply goes nowhere.

The speed dating sketches peppered throughout the show also add to the death knoll. They parade a series of dysfunctional and desperate women trying to ensnare a man through any means necessary – sound familiar? It has already been done to death on Smack The Pony, and here just feels old. Although the performers are great, and extremely likeable, you can never quite shake the feeling that you’ve seen it all done somewhere before. And done better.

6.15pm, Smirnoff Underbelly, Belly Button

H-BAM – Stop Fistfighting, You’re Pregnant

It has to be said that this Irish sketch troupe does have a good way with titles – this year’s show is certainly eye catching. And the sheer size of the group – with up to nine performers on stage at any one time – does lend them a certain standing apart from other groups.

Their show begins and ends on a song – the finale, ‘Making war is just like making love’ ending a particularly delightful and idiotic sketch involving that favourite of all sketch groups, Hitler and pals. The first sketch with the other perennial and recurring favourite of the sketch scene, Jesus and pals, shows brilliant promise, and proves that such a large group can work together on stage. However, they do seem to quite quickly lose their way.

Some of the best sketches in the show are the really stupid ones – the recurring appearance of the pirates who are trying to check in at the airport separately and discretely, but who can’t resist from letting out a triumphant "Aaar!" at the mention of plundering or pillaging. However, other recurring characters do not work so well. Saucy Jack, an Elizabethan character who keeps coming back on to tell his terrible tales, simply works better on paper than in performance, and ends up becoming nothing more than an irritation. It also boasts some of the most annoying incidental music on the Fringe, which doesn’t help matters at all.

The show does pass the hour in grand style, and it’s certainly well performed and executed, but it doesn’t have anything new or original to add to the already overcrowded sketch form.

5.00pm, Smirnoff Underbelly, Belly Button

Dutch Elm Conservatoire

The 2004 Fringe Festival does appear to be the Year of the Sketch, with sketch groups appearing from every angle. It’s a difficult area in which to write in, with precious few outlandish circumstances not already dealt with by previous troops, and the danger of stumbling on to another’s territory is around every corner. In this sketch eat sketch world, therefore, it’s difficult to believe that this is the first Fringe outing for Dutch Elm.

The first thing to strike about their show is the constant movement of the five performers on and off the stage. All entrances and exits are incorporated in to the body of the show, and become their main asset – characters from previous sketches are left to interact with those from the next. A dead body left on stage after one grizzly sketch is told by the next that they’ve booked the room, and leaves, shamefaced and apologising. The music, occasionally performed on keyboard or guitar, runs too long in to the next sketch and the musician runs off swearing. One sketch consists entirely of two lines, and lasts less than five seconds. Basically, it’s a fast moving show and you’ve got to hold on tight to keep up.

On this level, it works very well – if you’re bored with what’s happening, there’ll be something along soon enough. But that is also the weak point of the show – the rapid movement of themes and ideas means that nothing is ever properly explored or explained, and nothing moves past the obvious and quite often predictable punchlines and conclusions. Some of the sketches could have worked well lasting slightly longer, and it does feel a shame when they all fly past in a blur.

Overall, it is a very good first outing from this obviously talented group, who will no doubt be going on to very great things.

10.45pm, Pleasance Beside

Colin Murphy

Most comedians who, having struggled at their craft for a few years and anxious to move on to the next level, would probably strike a deal with the devil (and rumour has it that a certain over night success has already done that). Colin Murphy, being the good catholic Belfast boy that he is, has obviously whiled away the past year praying to St Laurence. The Patron Saint of comedy, or so he informs us.

Murphy has the great ability of making a stand up gig feel more like an informal chat down the pub. Even though he constantly points out the heat of the room, or the artificial construct of the situation, his tone and manner relaxes the audience and helps us to forget about how damn close we’re all sitting together.

The content of his stories – and you would be loathe to think of them as "routines", as they do seem to be told as and when they occur to him – all relate to his personal life. The day his eldest son had chicken pox, and they visited Belfast zoo; the Christmas morning the teenage Murphy collected his Dad sitting on the wall outside the local chinese; the journey the Murphy family took to see the Pope in Dublin in 1979 – all of these stories meld together to form a glorious illustration of how blessed and precious normal, everyday occurrences can be. The hour skips by in moments.

Murphy is a skilled, talented and generous storyteller who, if not touched by the hand of the comedy god, has at least been lavishly blessed by St Laurence.

8.05pm, Pleasance Upstairs

Live! At The Mauseleum

Live! At The Mauseleum begins with a warning: everything that happens in this show is entirely your own fault. It’s all taking place in the audience’s imagination, you see.

Double act sketch shows as a rule live or die on the dynamics of the pairing. If their relationship doesn’t work, then no matter how well written or performed the show is, it’s not going to succeed. Happily, the pairing of Cicely Giddings and Abigail Burdess works wonderfully.

They open with "spooky questions", striking mysterious poses and saucepan lids together to emphasise the other worldlyness of the situation. This sketch, like all the others, tips over in to surreal excess. The ideas are taken to breaking point, and then pushed off the edge, so the original premise of the story is lost amid the emotional or logical collapse of the characters or situation.

One particular sketch, involving a Fringe actress who is telling stories of previous successes that soon prove to be less than the glamour she’s trying to imply, soon turns on it’s heel as a member of the audience starts to heckle. With a pie. By the time the sketch ended, we were quite literally in tears.

The great appeal of this show is that just as you feel like you’ve got an idea of what’s going on, or just as it seems a sketch is about to finish, everything changes. The pair are brilliant performers, taking it in turns to outshine the other. The blank, vacant stare on the face of the clown, who has only entered the entertainment business because her various failed suicide attempts have amused and entertained, is something that will stay with you for hours after the show.

5.30pm, Gilded Balloon Teviot, Billiard Room