Detto is clearly one of the most skilled performers I’ve seen at the Fringe. He’s warm, funny and ingeniously light, gently teasing this reluctant crowd into playing along. There’s an almost arms-crossed quality to the room at the beginning, but Detto gradually changes it through sheer warmth and silliness.

The show is essentially asking: What is a hug? What is a kiss? approaches these questions with a playful naivety that I’m not sure many other performers could pull off without becoming creepy or irritating. In Detto’s hands, it’s disarmingly charming.

The show is dedicated to Detto’s grandfather Giuseppe, and genuine affection threads through the performance. There are some excellent set pieces alongside numerous improvised puns. Detto is extremely witty, although tonight those puns don’t always get the response they deserve.

At one point he sings a song while an audience member is supposed to press a button at exactly the right moment. She does not press the button at all – literally giving him nothing to play with. Detto’s response – do it again! You genuinely couldn’t ask for much worse support, but Detto turns even this into something funny.

The show climaxes with Giuseppe finally going on a date with an audience member. Crucially, she’s keen to play along, and suddenly the entire dynamic changes. After spending the hour coaxing us into his world, Detto finally had someone completely willing to play along. The section flies, and when Giuseppe ends the date, she and the audience are genuinely disappointed that it didn’t go on longer.

I think Detto has done something incredibly difficult and smart here. There may still be another layer to discover. Detto himself is in a relationship, and perhaps allowing us to glimpse more of the real person underneath Giuseppe could deepen what the show is asking about love.

Some of the puns might also benefit from being framed through a game with an individual audience member, giving him an ally in the room and something more concrete to bounce against when people are cynical.

But these are refinements to a performer already operating at an extraordinarily high (award winning) level. Detto is one of the warmest, funniest and silliest clowns I’ve seen, with an unusual ability to play on thin ice without losing the audience.

On a night with a more supportive crowd, I can imagine this show flying considerably higher. Tonight, with an audience giving him very little to work with, it was still a four-star show. That says everything about how good Detto is.

★★★★

Reviewed by Stephen ‘Sharpie’ Sharp
Underbelly George Square
Until 30 August
18.45 (1 hour)

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Kaly tells us that she is going to ask us to speak very honestly, but that she doesn’t feel she can do that without sharing something herself first. What follows is a particularly traumatic story about a medical injury to her genitalia. She talks about her upbringing, her relationship with her mum and, almost casually, as a 100% gay woman her experience of falling in love recently with a straight man.

It should not work – but it really does.

Watching Kaly perform is a little like watching Muhammad Ali fight- her guard incredibly low. Most comedians protect themselves with material: joke, punchline, laugh, repeat. Kaly leaves herself completely exposed. At points she risks losing her natural allies and confusing everyone else, yet every single person in the room is enthralled.

She asks people what they do for work, whether they own a house, whether they own a car and whether their parents helped them buy their home. As an American interrogating a British audience, she begins treading directly across our peculiar class system, digging into how the people sitting in this room actually got to be where they are.

Her crowd work is phenomenal because she seems genuinely interested in the answers. She isn’t frightened of silence or of allowing a conversation to briefly become ordinary. She understands something fundamental: if she is genuinely curious about somebody, eventually we become curious too. Soon the entire room wants to know what everyone else has going on in their lives.

There is a pill on a table and a certificate, in this show we only get to see one used. The framework feels incredibly slight, and I don’t want to reveal where Kaly is ultimately taking us because discovering that is part of the pleasure. The show eventually climaxes with her sharing something about her mum that blindsides us to what her aim was all along.

This is masterful crowd work from an extraordinarily assured performer. It is definitely not a static show, and there is clearly room for it to develop throughout the run. There are elements of a format developed in America that are juxtaposed to the British class system, but that may ultimately make the Edinburgh version even more interesting.

I’d genuinely like to see Between Us again. Partly because it will inevitably be a completely different show, but mostly because it’s fascinating to watch someone this confident do such a skillful high dive with so little apparent framework.

★★★★½

Reviewed by Stephen “Sharpie” Sharp

Pleasance Dome – Jack Dome
Until 23 August
23.00 (1 hour)

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We can see the Michael McIntyre-style approach in Trickey’s tightly constructed set-ups and punchlines, but on this wet Edinburgh evening, the audience are more supportive than cracked up. A lot of these well-written jokes simply don’t land as well as perhaps- they should?

This might just be an off night: much of the material is tight, the writing is smart and there are more than enough jokes here to fill an hour.

Trickey eventually tells the story of being punched during his last Edinburgh show, which is incredibly ripe ground for a Fringe hour. He’s definitely a smart guy, but there’s an element of his showmanship that still needs developing. Despite talking about things that are deeply personal to his life, I didn’t leave feeling that I really knew him as an individual.

Perhaps the most emotional moment in the show comes when Trickey genuinely opens up, but the audience doesn’t seem to notice that he’s being emotional at all. The vulnerability is there, but we don’t quite register it – someone gets up to cross the stage to go for a piss. I want to mention Trickey is fast – he improvises in the moment quickly – getting bigger laughs than his written material – i think audiences want to see more of that.

That perhaps gets to the heart of what isn’t connecting tonight: the material is personal, but the person behind it isn’t always reaching us.

He’s very quick with one-liners, a witty improviser and he absolutely does make the audience laugh consistently.

The writing ability is obvious, and there’s a huge amount of tightly constructed material here. Split feels like the work of a comedian whose showmanship is still catching up with his writing, and someone who should develop over the next few years into a comedian that kills.

***

Reviewed by Stephen “Sharpie” Sharp
Pleasance Courtyard Bunker Two
Until 30 August
21.25 (1 hour)

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Strangely, I hadn’t heard of Novellie either (says more about me, really). Glenn Moore mentioned him at his WIP show, recommending him as they do a podcast together. I found out recently that the gaming podcast is apparently so funny that even people I’ve met at the Fringe who don’t like gaming listen to it, simply because these two are so incredibly witty together.

Novellie is a giant of a man and relentlessly mocks himself for how large he is. He’s blessed with a searing wit and a relatable, self-deprecating nature, all the while being incredibly smart. He’s always one step ahead of the audience. He bangs out set-ups, punchlines and philosophical insights around language, growing up with a name like Pierre Novellie, how he looks, and what it’s like to be a star rugby player for a moment on the Isle of Man.

There’s an intelligence running through everything he does. He’s a master of wordplay and enjoys playing in the gaps between expectation and reality, and the space between English and French. Always interesting and entertaining, Novellie is undoubtedly a talent of epic proportions and deserves far more attention than he currently seems to be getting from the press and wider media.

One of the few I’ve discovered at the Fringe whose show I was sad to see end, and who I’ll now be watching for the rest of my life.

I’ll definitely be catching his other show, Pierre Novellie: One More Then Bedtime.

Catch a stadium-level stand-up currently playing to rooms of 150.

*****
Reviewed by Stephen “Sharpie” Sharp
Assembly George Square Studio 1
13.00 to 14.00

…

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When I had friends coming through the Fringe for one show only, this is the show I chose to take them to. It’s really warm, joyful, silly fun: incredibly tight clowning that manages to involve the entire audience constantly making us laugh without ever making anyone uncomfortable.
Toberman plays the “greatest ping-pong player in the world”, and we are his toughest ever opponents. The audience is galvanised into a team, choosing our own name and team cheer before taking him on. There’s a clever consent-based system for participation, meaning everyone can get involved without anybody feeling forced into the spotlight.
I remember people being slightly more confused by the premise last year. This time, it feels as though word has spread and the audience understands immediately what game we’re playing. Toberman also leans harder into being the bad guy. We delight in booing him, which only gives him more to play with.
He’s an exceptionally expressive performer. A tiny turn of the head or raised eyebrow can get a huge laugh, and he is razor sharp knowing exactly how long to hold a moment. The structure underneath all the silliness is incredibly strong and noticeably tighter than last year.
After initially defeating us, Toberman begins drinking an energy drink that is comedically bad for him, and things start to unravel. He recruits an audience member to be his father.There are countless tiny games, visual jokes and set pieces like this, alongside enough improvisation to make the whole thing feel created just for us.
Toberman is also assisted by a couple of performers who elevate the show enormously. They understand exactly how to support him without distracting from the central character, helping build this ridiculous sporting contest into something that feels like it matters to all of us.
Eventually, Toberman defeats the entire audience, and we go wild.
It’s difficult to express how much skill it takes to make a comedy clown show this clean, light and apparently effortless. The entire room gets permission to be silly together. Beneath that simplicity is a myriad of beautifully judged little decisions that make the whole thing work.
Ping-Pong Champ is tighter, funnier and more assured than it was last year. I already liked it enough to bring my friends for their only show of the fringe.
We all left happier as people. More of this please.

★★★★★
Reviewed by Stephen “Sharpie” Sharp
Pleasance Courtyard Bunker 2
Until 31 August (not 24)
13.30 (1 hour)

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Lame is outrageously funny, oscillating between obsessive Britney fan, Britney herself and terrifying monster-like creations as the show hurtles through pop music, space travel, romance, murder and complete madness. The entire audience becomes part of the story, and there’s a massive energy to the way Lame performs. She commits completely to every ridiculous turn and is brilliant at pulling us into her bizarre universe.

If you like it weird this show is for you.

The audience is primarily gay men, women and allies, and we are here to genuinely celebrate a show that revels in being different.

At times, it’s wonderfully grotesque. There’s a moment where Lame needs an alien pulled from her butt and an audience member is enticed onstage to help.

Elsewhere, the interplay with her drunken agent—a delighted middle-aged woman plucked from the audience—is great fun, eventually leading to the agent being fired and a replacement chosen from the crowd.

There are numerous smart silly and just bizzare set pieces, but you can feel how hard this show has been loved and worked. It’s raunchy, saucy and definitely blue, so it won’t be for everyone. But if you’re a Spears fan, a drag fan or someone who enjoys a performer dancing gleefully along the line between the sweet, the blue and the grotesque, there’s an enormous amount here to really enjoy – just let go and be taken for the ride.

Beneath all the madness, there’s genuine heart. Lame finishes by revealing why Britney means so much to her before inviting the entire audience onstage to dance. What started as an intergalactic Britnanic odyssey – ends as a huge communal celebration.

For Spears fans, allies and anyone who wants to drink, cheer and be taken on a magical journey by a frankly overwhelmingly charismatic performer, it’s a perfect night out.

It’s imaginative, ridiculous, funny, and we all leave galvanised.

Stephen “Sharpie” Sharp
****
22.50 to 23.50
Pleasance Above
Until 30th August

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Each night the script of a different beloved film, from Twilight to Titanic to Love Actually is sufficiently mangled and, after a brief edit to make it as comprehensive as possible, performed. At my showing I was treated to an adaptation of one of my childhood favourites, Pirates of The Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

The show is inherently hilarious with dialogue, stage directions and narration all occasionally dipping into the surreal as the translations mix up the meanings. Jack Sparrow becomes Jack Little Bird, flintlock pistols become AK-47s.

It’s worth peeling back the curtain a little and noting that the special sauce in the comedy is not really the wackiness of the mistakes, but the careful way the script has been rewritten to keep only the best parts. These rewrites are downplayed in the show introduction but in reality someone paying attention will notice how certain gags feel much more written by a human than a faulty translator, especially at points when characters start swearing at each other or there are clever callbacks but perhaps a certain level of artifice is welcome to make the illusion that much funnier.

To compare Lost in Translation to its sister show/archnemesis in the Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, Lost in Translation is definitely the more visual of the two, with plenty of costumes, miming, props and audience engagement. I wouldn’t say there’s much to pick between them though, as someone unaware of their history, they do seem remarkably similar and my first thought was which came first. But if you like one, you’ll almost certainly like the other.

I had a great time though I found it a little cringe that they are still doing a couple of Harry Potter movies in 2026. Hopefully they’ll have a chance to think of some better options for next year.

A crowd pleasing and eye-wateringly funny show at points but I think best enjoyed if you’re familiar with the source material as the distorted script doesn’t always make it easy to follow along with the action. If you’re thinking of going, be sure to check the website for the show listings beforehand or you might find yourself more lost than the translation.

*****
Reviewed by Tom

21:00

5th-30th (not Mon)

Auditorium at Gilded Balloon at the Museum

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The films parodied are a selection of well-known hits, from Die Hard to The Matrix to The Shawshank Redemption. For my showing it was Jurassic Park which, due to my chronic lack of media literacy, I’ve actually never seen. But that does mean that I can confidently state that the show is funny enough that not seeing the film is no barrier to enjoying the show. In fact, potentially it makes it even better.

While all the performers who step up to the selection of mics are great, the true star of the show is the script, with a series of very silly and very funny gags coming so thick and fast that there’re undoubtedly some you miss just from laughing too hard at the last one.

To compare Dreamgun Film Reads to its sister show/archnemesis at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, Lost in Translation, which has a similar pitch I’d say that Film Reads is definitely the cleverer of the two and I think a fraction funnier for it. Both are good shows, but if I had to pick, I’d definitely come to Dreamgun every time.

On reviewing the show before I remarked how it felt like a show that had been written for me specifically and I still agree with that assessment. The love of film combined with a love of silly jokes and verbal nonsense spoke right to my comedy soul and, while there are those out there who might want their gags a little less wordy, for anyone who’s ever delighted in watching through a film loudly pointing at all the stupid bits with friends, this is the show for you.

*****
Reviewed by Tom

15:35

5th-17th

Wine Bar at Gilded Balloon Teviot

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There is plenty of humour in the premise, particularly because drinking is presented initially as such an ordinary part of their lifestyle. Imogen is increasingly concerned about her consumption, but finds that giving up is considerably harder when wine is woven into both her home and working life. Herbal tea doesn’t exactly put up much of a fight.

Into their lives comes Maddy, a new employee of Imogen’s and a near-neighbour, whose enthusiastic approach to wine and shots does little to help Imogen’s attempts at moderation. What initially looks like harmless socialising gradually reveals something more troubling, as the characters discover just how dependent their lives have become on alcohol.

The strength of Soaked is that it doesn’t present its characters as stereotypical alcoholics. These are recognisable, successful people who happen to drink too much, and that makes the story rather more uncomfortable. There are a series of wake-up calls as the consequences become increasingly difficult to ignore, while the humour provides an effective counterbalance to the darker material.

Emma Rydal, Toby Gaffney and Stephanie Bradshaw give strong performances, creating believable relationships and keeping the tone balanced between comedy and drama. The writing is engaging and the production never loses sight of the very ordinary social habits at the heart of its story.

An intelligent, compelling and sometimes uncomfortably familiar 80 minutes of Fringe theatre. Soaked has plenty to say about our relationship with alcohol without becoming preachy, and is well worth seeking out.

4 stars ****
Reviewed by Howard
Studio at theSpace @ Niddry Street
Until 25th August
15:40 – 16:50

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Feeling lonely before Valentine’s Day isn’t fun and, like many people, Harriet takes to social media and creates an online sensation with her absurd yet fruitful idea of dating 100 men in a day that attracts media attention and online notoriety. As she describes some of the dates, the creepy ones were older men. One of the men had a spaceship screensaver, can you guess which planet he was orbiting? As she receives numerous texts about her venture, a close family member gets in on the act.

To demonstrate how little you can find out about a person in a short time, she interacts with the audience and goes on a few extremely short dates. She gets a message from a Taskmaster celebrity who shall remain nameless and her obsession begins. She was blocked from contacting him but there are always ways to find people!

Harriet joins an exclusive dating site strictly for celebrities and is surprised to get contacted by a Harry Potter star — but what if she’s never seen Harry Potter? Harriet then discovers the profile of a well-known celebrity’s dad whose favourite song isn’t what you’d expect.

Spending Christmas with her boyfriend’s family is a happy occasion, telling stories and taking pictures but when the family gather round to watch the compilation, the evening takes an unexpected and embarrassing twist which puts her relationship on the line. Harriet goes on a trip to Blackpool and makes some wax work comparisons before starting a hilarious proof of self-portfolio. After some divine intervention, she decides to honour every man she has ever slept with by getting a tattoo of someone very close to them. To complete the tattoo, Harriet has to hire an expert to obtain the information she needs!

This is a laugh-a-minute real-life comedy with humour around every corner. Harriet’s lovable personality and relaxed yet confident performance is a joy to watch. As the show progresses, you don’t know what’s coming next. The humour keeps coming and the audience of the sold out show absolutely loved it!

4.5 stars ****.5
Reviewed by Steve J.
Various venues at Pleasance Courtyard
Until 30th August
19:00 – 20:00

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