Ivo Graham, Chloe Petts, Stevie Martin, Jessie Cave - Mark Muldoon's Fringe Diary

Written by: Mark Muldoon
Published: Monday 12th August 2024

Ivo Graham is now one of the biggest comedians at the Fringe. He's doing 22 performances at the Pleasance Grand. Quick maths: that's 16,500 tickets to sell this year. The themes of this outing? Expect football, Grand Designs and LCD Soundsystem. Ivo acknowledges that there's quite a lot of content about the England football team for a comedy festival in Scotland, and so he throws in some token material about the Scottish football team to balance things out a little, but it still doesn't stop it being maybe too much material about English football team for a Scottish comedy festival.

It's knockabout fun, only slightly touching on - but definitely never properly getting into - heavier themes. Whilst it's not his best work, he's continuing to prove himself to be a reliable booking (his best show is his 2022 one, incidentally, and you'll be happy to know that that's available over on YouTube).

There's a certain dark pleasure in seeing real-life couple Jessie Cave and Alfie Brown at the Fringe.

You may or may not recall that Alfie Brown was 'cancelled' in March 2023, when left wing activists resurfaced an old clip of him repeatedly using the N-word.

You might think that that's as bad as his life could get. Turns out, the events of the following year were even worse. He thinks he should be congratulated after being offered good money by various right wing media and comedy outlets to join their stables, which is perhaps fair enough.

Fans will still enjoy this show - plenty here ranks amongst his best work. The events of the last 12 months locate this performance in the 'trauma comedy' genre, which makes it a little less recommendable as an actual comedy show. Those revelations come at the back end of the hour though, which means there's still ample high quality moments to enjoy beforehand.

Amongst plenty of 'TMI full-disclosure' comedians at the Fringe, for my money, Jessie Cave (Alfie's long-term partner) is the finest. That's largely down to the endlessly intriguing way her mind works, and the repercussions there-of. Expect a particularly high-quality waxing story. The merits of this marriage.com article are highlighted. There's some shadow puppetry and a few interactions between her and Alfie are acted out, but amongst all this variety, the quality remains consistent.

Lots of Newcomer Buzz around Jin Hao Li this year, who was dazzling in a 15 minute set a few months ago. Is that the slightest hint of a mid-show lull detectable in his show, that maybe suggests he wasn't quite ready for a full hour just yet? Maybe, but newcomers don't need to have all their material spot on yet, and it's balanced out by a pretty phenomenal opening ten minutes. If newcomers have got a superb, surreal persona that's completely their own, alongside some genuinely exciting material, that's enough to show you may well have a future star on your hands. And Jin Hao Li definitely has a superb persona and genuinely exciting material.

Anybody who's seen Rob Auton before will know he trades in wide-eyed wonder at the mundane and trivial, and this year is - surprise surprise - no different. "I'm too young for my material" he jokes at one point, which is a very nice little observation: it's somewhat miraculous that every year he manages to come up with so many philosophical musings, always so poetic and beautiful. I could do without him spoiling a joke by explaining it afterwards (if people laugh, they've got the joke, it doesn't need explaining). The jokeless sincere bits also don't feel particularly revelatory this time round. If you've seen him before you'll know what to expect, and it's probably not essential to see this outing, but god if you never have, you really should.

If nothing else, Elf Lyons continues to be one of the Fringe's most intriguing performers. We know she's a very good straightforward stand-up, but every year she refuses to take the easiest road travelled, instead choosing to fully commit to some grand idea, such as an hour of Stephen King-themed horror comedy, or a bank heist show performed in British Sign Language.

So it is this year with Horses, where Lyons is a horse for the entirety of the show. Truth be told, it's maybe better described as solidly-amusing theatre than comedy, and could do with a few more laugh-out-loud moments (as well as maybe not ending ten minutes late), but as a solidly-amusing theatre show, it's charming, playful and, to be clear: excellent.

Viral video star Stevie Martin's show seems to be about her being a viral video star. It features my favourite pre-show joke of the Fringe so far (relating to her pre-show music strategy). Her online work is excellent, though she's maybe not fully fluid and at ease on stage yet. The building blocks definitely show considerable potential though.

The theory goes that each generation is supposed to be better than the one that preceded it. Based on that theory, Sara Barron has written a show about how her mother is worse than her, and her grandmother worse than her mother. Particular attention is given to the extent her mother dominates her father. Barron's comic persona is still pretty phenomenal - withering and acerbic, which has always helped make any show of hers well worth seeing, as is the case here.

Two things you can expect from a Paddy Young show: high-quality audience interactions and a tendency to alight on unique topics. Pleased to report he's now joined the ranks of Consistently Great Fringe Comedians.

You can expect Dee Allum to be a contender for the best newcomer award this year, with a show that concerns her transition to becoming a trans woman. Her hour concerns her new life as a trans woman, although one of the highlights is actually her discussion of the differences between having a Kurdish girlfriend and a Yorkshire girlfriend. There's a bit of structure in the show that you'll see coming a mile off, and the joke quality isn't fully astonishing, but this is definitely a promising start.

"I will be waiting until I get the amount of laughter I deserve". Finally, to Chloe Petts, who is pausing for a second to allow the audience reaction to build. It's just a bit of fun: she's definitely getting the amount of laughter she deserves. It shows her confidence though, which is certainly justified. Her social/gender politics hour understands that you can discuss anything on stage (therefore helping affect social change), as long as you've got a great punchline at the end. Her rise up to the big leagues continues.

Read previous editions of this column (featuring Fawlty Towers: The Play, Olga Koch, Phil Wang, Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Rhod Gilbert).

Mark Muldoon is also available on Instagram and Twitter. He's supportive of stand-up comedy about LCD Soundsystem.