Bronwyn Kuss / Frank Sanazi / Til Fletcher - Bobby Carroll's Edinburgh Fringe Diary

Written by: Bobby Carroll
Published: Sunday 25th August 2024

Bronwyn Kuss. Two pints in. Me not her.

Bitter. Twisted. Undeniably talented. She covers topics so sporadic and idiosyncratic you could never predict what is going to shit in her sandwich next. Every assassination is droll yet tentative. The jagged words selected are precise and calm. The hit rate incredible considering how low key the delivery. Always withering, always reluctantly superior.

Kuss's high school drama teacher's obliteration of an entire class's hope is assessed with a dead eyed recall. Her partner's beefs on Facebook Marketplace goes into home invasion territory real quick. Not many comedians could make short punchy work of their rescue dog's eyes being removed, but Kuss is in her element. It is all so luxurious and clever for bile.

The debut hour Sounds Good is no soft connect, no blow below the belt. This is knockout craft meets natural style. Kuss powers into difficult subject matter with a zen centre. Her disgust at the personal translates into the universal. An icky therapist who tries to toxify a healthy (ish) relationship with her dad. A fixation on her partner's ex that sparks a highlight routine of exasperated hate. Some billionaire is sending art school kids up into the oblivion of space rather than trained astronauts. Let's cleave every last laugh out of this sick foolhardy philanthropy.

Sounds Good has a classical narrative spine running through all the despondent randomness. A looping return to a story where Kuss and her partner find a drunk lady in need of assistance. My new favourite bleak merchant nails the landing. Some of the finest stand-up this August has seen and no Newcomer nomination? WTF?! Was it the five minute long linger on the big screen, high def dick pic perhaps?

Pete Cunningham's Adolf meets Old Blue Eyes cult mash-up is still going strong. Allowing that Frank Sanazi operates very much within the brackets of ironic bad taste, this greatest hits compilation is a show stopping cabaret victory. All the laborious puns about genocide, dictators and terror are here both in spoken word and song form. He goose steps, he remonstrates to the air, he croons. We cackle.

Where the hour really flies, though, is in the dead-on recreation of The Rat Pack's on-stage banter... only between Hitler and Dino Stalin. If you have ever watched footage of Sinatra and Dean Martin drunkenly shining each other on from their Vegas heydays you'll realise this spoof of their banter and crowdwork is scarily accurate.

There are times when the set list shows its age. 9/11 themed Strangers On My Flight might have been the parody song that kick started all this nutty madness off, but the Twin Towers attack now (somehow) feels more dated than mid-20th century Fascism. And the late introduction of guest star Spliff Richard in his tennis shorts and rasta wig (but thankfully no blackface) feels unnecessarily cruel to the harmless Christian asexual pop dinosaur. But then the guy playing Richards recreates those creepy mannerisms, and the weird little gluck the Wired For Sound celebrity is known for making, so accurately, that all is forgiven.

This is ultimately Sanazi's show and everything else is Swiss Banker gold. Operating in the same elevated transgressive space as Kunt and the Gang or an old school insult drag queen, Cunnigham's swingin' fuhrer is pretty unimpeachable for those seeking non-PC entertainment. I laughed so much I'm probably going to Heil!

Performed while dressed like every single Spice Girl simultaneously, Mel Owen's Chunky Monkey is more humorous one woman spoken word show than traditional stand-up comedy. Well at least in this pre-debut, 45 minutes long, off mic, acapella scratch version. A feminist until she needs her dad, and a magnet to the sort of bad lads who make the news for headbutting police horses or get acquitted of attempted patricide. Put the effort in boys. The majority of this has the delectable schadenfreude of listening in to a one-sided Facetime call on a long bus ride. You know the one. Top deck, zero pauses, no filter. You can either treat it as white noise or your new favourite eavesdropped soap opera.

Owen does have serviceable routines in her repertoire and these are salted in and out. She finds a sweet spot describing crusty single men's bedrooms and her memories of being a snowman in a school nativity that has an awkwardly funny shock within it. There is ample personality and lived experience throughout this rough draft. Chunky Monkey can get hammered into a finer shaped hour. Another year of growth on the circuit, building up her sea legs and timing, and Owen could easily be a Welsh name we'll all be talking about, if we can get a word in edgeways.

Til Fletcher's Turbo Town is a full effort character comedy show. There were faint echoes in her cast of council employees and locals that reminded me of early Coogan in their verbiage and studied exactness. As she hides behind a cute model village of long lost British High Street shops the soundscape warps into satire. Like a daytime tribute to Chris Morris's Jam. It can't be an accident that the strongest moment is when a massive Gail's Bakery set eclipses the twee market square. Two middle class grotesques made out of well used dollies unleash some psychic consumer nightmares.

What does seem out of comedy artist Til Fletcher's control is her graveyard shift midnight slot. Turbo Town is a show that has lunchtime written all over it. The characters are sophisticated creations rather than catchphrase machines; the humour is in their heightened portraiture rather than blunt gags and sharp writing. The audience is restless and chatty throughout. Not giving Fletcher the chance to marinate them with her stroking, tender worldview.

Fletcher is a smart enough structuralist to grab our attention. Our initial impression of the model town setting is scored to a banging big beat hymn to Nineties aspiration and universality. Her first caricature is a security guard full of energy and interaction. You can't deny she does everything she could to put her stamp and authority onto a drunk and tired room. Yet, as the hour knuckles down into scripted performance, there are dickheads who have to be asked to leave and others who only audibly come on board when they are addressed directly.

The past of the market town centre as an anarchic space where the old and the weird can congregate for no charge is a thing of lost beauty. A call for an echo chamber for the artists and dreamers to separate off into as their own little commune closes the show. I'm not sure what the ultimate point of Turbo Town is, but it got me thinking. An afternoon slot would suit the delicacy and attention to detail of the theatrics. A tech from another show who recognised me nudged my beer belly on the way out. "I think that one was just for us tonight." Til Fletcher deserves a better audience than that. I was five pints in (it was an accidentally social work night) and I could see her swagger, ambition and gifts.

I can liken writing about live comedy to two things. The first is nostalgic. The memory tray of objects you had a limited time to commit to your brain cells and then had to list as many as possible. The brush. The apricot stone. A bronze coin. The second is a fair bit more offensive for the performer. The lap dance. The lap dance after a few steady beers. One should really just enjoy it in the moment but we all know most sad lonely little men who want to rate and rank things are going to give it a good hard replay once they get to privacy.

My memories of this Fringe are strong, indelible. It has been one of the most high quality years for comedy I can remember.

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