Si Hawkins' Fringe Diary 2014. Part One: Old Winners
Published: Sunday 17th August 2014
As it's nearly nomination time I thought I'd split my usually exhaustive mini-review rundown into more digestible bite-size chunks, kicking off with a few previous winners of the Edinburgh Comedy Award.
Bridget Christie (pictured) has become the Fringe's hearty, roughage-ready cereal in recent years: she really does start your day off right. There's a liberal sprinkling of sugar, of course, but Ungrateful Woman is prime wholegrain brainfood, brilliantly weaving comedy from some of the least funny subjects imaginable. Early on it looks like she might just copy the format for last year's award-winning show, which would be understandable, with Steve Davis subbing for Stirling Moss, but thankfully that's a red herring. In fact it's a braver, more incisive hour than 2013's award-winning effort, and by far the best thing you can do at 11.10am. Bravura!
Seeing David O'Doherty shuffle around Edinburgh in August, you sometimes worry for his well-being, and that's the theme of this year's show, David O'Doherty Has Checked Everything. It's DO'D and the search for happiness, as he takes us through the various objects and people that were supposed to complete his puzzle. Ironically, he looks more than happy on stage (and popping out to greet a few random celebs in the queue beforehand - a scruffy hoody is excellent camouflage, Richard from Pointless), and while he isn't straying far from the successful feeling-blue-print, the gags and songs are as sharp as ever. I'll never look at lasagne in the same way again.
Tim Key's Single White Slut was in practise mode up here last year, before a proper London run, and the finished product is a masterpiece, making bravura use of the converted gym that's the Pleasance Grand. You wonder if he'll be able to fill it - not with people, this being a short-run hot ticket - but those tiny words. Actually the show turns out to be a surprise-laden visual spectacle, and on a couple of beautifully unexpected occasions there are no words at all. He even manages to insult the whole audience for the first few minutes, and still charm the pants off us.
Speaking of the pantless, 2012 award winner Doctor Brown is driving down pretty much the opposite road to Key as he too looks to expand his own creative horizons. The famously word-free clown is now chatting away onstage, and chanting, and not wearing many clothes at all, during a memorable work in progress hour at Banshee Labyrinth: BEWHATTHEFUCK. Accompanied by an often bewildered-looking fellow comic on guitar, the furry Californian clambers through, up and over us in just a flimsy loin cloth, between often intimate interactions onstage. Following his progress to the finished product should be fascinating.
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