Edinburgh festival 2014 comedy review – from a young Mary Berry to liberal smugness (original) (raw)

"Who'd have thought the Scots would be so good at sport?" one promoter muttered darkly on the first day of the fringe, referring to the fact that the first couple of days of previews have seemed quieter than usual, perhaps as a result of the Commonwealth Games luring crowds to the other side of the country. The usual endearing chaos of the preview days has been compounded this year by building work in Bristo Square and well-meaning anti-Israel protesters disrupting the wrong venue. But somehow the shows have gone on, in more strange and exotic locations than ever. And there's plenty to suit all tastes if you're tired of watching pole‑vaulting.

The fringe always attracts a strong turnout from Australian comics and for the past few years Celia Pacquola (Let Me Know How It All Works Out, Gilded Balloon) has been one of the most interesting to watch. Though her material is built around the self-deprecating confessional anecdotes – usually featuring relationships and drinking – beloved of many comics, her sharp intelligence and ability to play with the audience's expectations gives her performance a distinctive edge. This year she confesses to her reliance on psychics – "or 'reverse historians' if you prefer" – a harmless if embarrassing indulgence that turned darker when a palm reader told her she would never have children. The show is a series of riffs on the idea of our conflicted desire to control our destiny and still believe in infinite possibilities, smartly crafted and delivered with an easygoing confidence and range of facial expressions that make you feel you've had the privilege of hanging out with an especially funny friend.

Holly Walsh's new show,Never Had It, at Assembly, is also about confidence, or the lack of: specifically that quality called "it", as in "she's got it". Walsh has, by her own admission, "the face of a young Mary Berry" and a gentle voice that makes even obscenities sound "delightful". What she doesn't have is "it". She explores this lack through a series of vignettes from her teens and 20s, complete with illustrations. But it's her gift for original lines and images that make this show a joy: the Duke of Edinburgh's award is "Middle England's answer to the Hitler Youth"; eavesdropping is "bcc-ing myself into a conversation". Strip clubs exert the same fascination over her adult self as the staffroom used to at school, leading her to wonder what goes on behind those closed doors: "In both cases they're full of adults whose lives haven't worked out as planned." If "it" means a talent for smart comic writing and the ability to keep an audience rapt, Walsh's unassuming persona indicates that she has it in spades.

Wendy Wason in her show Hotel California: 'engaging company'.

When Wendy Wason last performed at the fringe in 2011 she was eight months pregnant. Her new show, Hotel California, at the Gilded Balloon, charts her family's adventures over the past year, when she and her actor husband decided to try their luck in Hollywood. There are the predictable anecdotes about LA life, but the story picks up pace when her husband is rushed to hospital with an unexplained life-threatening illness and Wason is introduced to the horrors of a world without the free healthcare we take for granted. The show takes a further unexpected turn as she segues into an impassioned plea for us not to sleepwalk into the gradual selling-off of the NHS. It's a fine and worthwhile message; the only complaint is that, for a comedy show, it's a little short on laughs, though Wason is engaging company.

"Engaging company" is not a description you would use of Liam Williams (Capitalism, Laughing Horse @ The Cellar Monkey), though his downbeat, indifferent stage manner is oddly compelling. He appears to be taking what might be called the Daniel Kitson approach to a comedy career, building on last year's best newcomer nomination by moving to an obscure venue on the free fringe. This, he says, is so that the young and poor can come, though he has called the show Capitalism "to keep stupid people away" so he won't have to do gags. "Beset by negative thoughts", he explores our culture's various panaceas for existential misery: porn, meditation, exercise, a gratitude journal. "If you came out with these adolescent theories in a pub, people would just leave," he observes at one point. But we don't; though it feels as if we are watching someone driven to despair by their own overthinking, it's all carefully controlled and there's an intriguing dark glitter about this undoubtedly talented young comic. Wherever he goes next, it will be worth watching.

Canadian Glenn Wool has become one of the stalwarts not just of the fringe but of the international comedy circuit over the past 20 years, and this year his show (Wool's Gold, Underbell_y_) is a compilation of greatest hits, woven into an extended anecdote about how he's managed to offend people over the years. He tackles religion, child abuse, race, relationships and his own failures, all with the presence of a consummate professional, swiping at liberal smugness and conservative bigotry with equal verve while his cleverness slips under the radar. Disarming his audience, fearing that they may have spotted racism, he explains that "race is a physical attribute, and that was a joke about language". The fringe may be short on track and field events, but there's an infectious energy to this show that makes you feel you have witnessed an impressive display of comedy stamina.