Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

This probably isn’t the sort of induction briefing that the new US consul to Scotland has experienced before. But after the good-sport diplomat was identified in the front row of this gig, Daniel Downie directed the whole show at him, offering a personal introduction to the slang, mindset, culture and history of Caledonia that you don’t get in Lonely Planet.

Highlander Downie, who offers more fact-based (but still humorous) tours of the capital as his day job, is a gregarious, lively guide - upbeat about Scots being downbeat. In fact, he likes speaking to people so much that he spends more than a quarter of his allotted time on MC-style banter, equal parts time-wasting and ice-breaking.

But riffing on where everyone’s from is in keeping with a show which has regional comic stereotypes at its heart. He paints Scotland as a nation of obesity and heroin, Buckfast and swearing, dour Presbyterians, Glaswegian neds and well-to-do Edinburghers.

It’s a familiar picture, but the lack of originality doesn’t dull its effectiveness in the room. I suspect people secretly like having the archetypes that define their national tribe reinforced – while for outsiders many of these cultural references would be fresh.

Downie puts repeated emphasis on the points he makes to drive them home, such as pushing the notion of a nation that likes pessimism and misery through the Oor Willie comics and their lack of ambition.

There’s some actual history here derived from his day job, brief stories about the origin of the Saltire, Robert The Bruce and William Wallace. Robert Burns is his literary hero – of course – and Downie closes the show by rewriting his poem To A Louse as if to Boris Johnson, a change of subject that’s well-received. Though the language is archaic, this parody makes its points in an original way – auguring well for Downie’s 2022 show, for which it was written.

As for this one, it’s ungroundbreaking comedy delivered with good cheer by a confident performer, with a few fascinating facts thrown in. But if only we could see the US envoy’s next cable back to Washington, describing what he learned here…

• Daniel Downie: Hour of Scotland is on at the Scottish Comedy Festival @ The Beehive at 2pm until August 28.

Review date: 17 Aug 2021
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett