British Comedy Guide

2015 Edinburgh Fringe

Best reviewed Edinburgh Fringe shows 2015

BCG's 2015 Edinburgh Fringe coverage involved over 1,900 different comedy shows. But which were the best? We collected up more than 5,000 reviews from over 50 publications in August, making us ideally placed to analyse which shows were loved most by the press.

In descending order, here are the comedians who clocked up more than 10 reviews rated 4 or 5 stars. Click on any of the names for to see their full list of reviews.

Nish Kumar: Long Word... Long Word... Blah Blah Blah... I'm so Clever. Nish Kumar. Copyright: Nit TV

Nish Kumar

Alex Edelman: Everything Handed to You. Alex Edelman

Alex Edelman

Felicity Ward: What If There Is No Toilet?. Felicity Ward. Copyright: Eleven Film

Felicity Ward

James Acaster: Represent. James Acaster

James Acaster

Bridget Christie: A Book For Her. Bridget Christie. Copyright: Rocket Pictures

Bridget Christie

Joseph Morpurgo: Soothing Sounds for Baby. Joseph Morpurgo

Joseph Morpurgo

Kieran Hodgson: Lance. Kieran Hodgson

Kieran Hodgson

Sam Simmons: Spaghetti for Breakfast. Sam Simmons

Sam Simmons

Daphne Do Edinburgh. Image shows from L to R: Phil Wang, Jason Forbes, George Fouracres

Daphne

Nick Cody - Beard Game Strong. Nick Cody. Copyright: BBC

Nick Cody

Sarah Kendall: A Day in October. Sarah Kendall

Sarah Kendall

Trygve Wakenshaw: Nautilus. Trygve Wakenshaw

Trygve Wakenshaw

Adam Hills: Clown Heart. Adam Hills. Copyright: BBC

Adam Hills

BEASTS: Live DVD. Copyright: Armada Productions

Beasts

Dane Baptiste: Reasonable Doubts. Dane Baptiste. Copyright: BBC

Dane Baptiste

Mark Steel: Who Do I Think I Am?. Mark Steel

Mark Steel

Minor Delays. Image shows from L to R: Joe Barnes, Abi Tedder, Harry Michell. Copyright: Talkback

Minor Delays

Adam Hess: Salmon. Adam Hess. Copyright: John Stanley Productions

Adam Hess

Festival of the Spoken Nerd: Just for Graphs. Image shows from L to R: Steve Mould, Matt Parker, Helen Arney. Copyright: The Comedy Unit

Festival of the Spoken Nerd

Glenn Wool: Creator, I am but a Pawn. Glenn Wool. Copyright: Little Rock

Glenn Wool

Richard Gadd: Waiting for Gaddot. Richard Gadd

Richard Gadd

Spencer Jones Presents: The Herbert in Proper Job. Spencer Jones

Spencer Jones

The Pin: Ten Seconds with The Pin. Image shows from L to R: Alexander Owen, Ben Ashenden

The Pin

Tom Parry: Yellow T-shirt. Tom Parry

Tom Parry

In the Cabaret and Theatre sections of the programme Fake It 'til You Make It, A Gambler's Guide to Dying, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, Puddles Pity Party, How to Keep an Alien and Every Brilliant Thing were very well reviewed.

Edinburgh Fringe Best Reviewed Shows

Meanwhile just missing out on the above list, with a still impressive 10 top rated reviews, were Andrew Maxwell, Goose, Max and Ivan, Stewart Lee and Tiff Stevenson. In summary, if you see any of the comedians named on this page coming to a town near you, they're definitely worth getting a ticket to.

We want to stress that this list is biased towards those that managed to convince lots of reviewers to come and see them. There are almost certainly amazing shows missing from this list because they didn't get 10 or more reviews... so do go and see as much live comedy from up-and-coming comedians as you can too!

Most of the review data used to compile the above was sourced by Ian Wolf - a big thanks to him (he won a FringePig award this year for his work); and also a thank you to comedian and data-analyst Gareth Morinan for helping us with the data crunching again (check out his animated Tetris remix video).

To see all the reviews that any comedy show at the 2015 Fringe got, just find it on our site: Browse listings


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Published: Monday 7th September 2015

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