Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Everyone loves medics - clap every Thursday and all that. Add the word ‘revue’, however, and you have one of the most derided sub-genres of the Fringe.

The UCL students behind this offering are not going to overturn that image, but there are a few laughs in this themed sketch show set in, where else?, a hospital.

It starts with the amusing idea that the most embarrassing condition you could ever rock up to your GP with is vaccine scepticism. Other hits include reimagining the NHS as the Nationalist Health Service, or portraying Médecins Sans Frontières doctors as dashing heartthrob heroes … and don’t they know it. 

But even with good ideas, the scripts are hugely overwritten. This is one area where NHS cuts would be welcome. And when there’s not a good idea at a scene’s heart, which is rather too often, it’s interminable. Scatological humour is included, as expected, though they keep it relatively restrained, for the genre.

None of the troupe are natural actors - definitely more operating theatre than National Theatre – and lines are either  wooden or delivered with such exaggerated comic over-the-toppery to be irritating. 

Bear Grylls rampages through the wards for some reason (though he has a nice pun at the end), while the administrator just shouting about how important he is proves symptomatic of a script that never lets the audience figure anything out for themselves. Every point is made literally and loudly. 

Let’s hope these future doctors wield their scalpels with more precision.

• Deathbed Confessions of a Hypochondriac is on at TheSpace @ Surgeon's Hall at 2.45pm today and tomorrow.

Review date: 20 Aug 2021
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: theSpace @ Surgeons' Hall