Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Half of Yorkshire’s greatest export, The Delightful Sausage, Chris Cantrill is, like his meat-mate Amy Gledhill, bringing a solo show to the Fringe in a different mode from the surreal narrative of his double act.

The Bad Boy is straight stand-up, telling stories from Cantrill’s experience of the pandemic. As he spent his youth in London ‘smashing tinnies’ and ‘throwing a bottle of piss at Daphne and Celeste’, he probably didn’t imagine he’d find himself in his current position: living with his In-Laws and running a B&B in rural Yorkshire with his wife and son. 

Can he still be the bad boy he used to be, or has that title now been passed to his son, who is obsessed with decapitation and prisons? ‘I told my wife that my culture’s being erased,’ he says at the top of the show, ‘because you don’t see custard on menus anymore.’ As a performer, he’s given to rich, information-dense sentences with a strong, surreal sense of place, like an anxious millennial Bob Mortimer.

The B&B was a Covid-related decision. Cantrill’s In-Laws were in danger of losing the property as the hospitality industry ground to a halt, so the comedian and his wife nobly sold their own house and moved in to help with the expenses and the upkeep. An act of purest altruism – and all part of the plan for Cantrill to game his way into a massive house with three hot tubs. ‘It’s one cold snap away from being all mine.’

Although the catalysing weirdness of the Sausage is sometimes missed, there are gags here that are absolutely killer. Cantrill has one of the best voices for comedy on the circuit, and one thing you can be sure of is that he’ll sell the hell out of every single line, finding the perfect rhythm and cadence with incredible accuracy.

His crowd in the Monkey Barrel’s Studio room is smaller than he deserves, but they’re so on board by the end that he has to take steps to calm them down. 

Maybe it’s the pressure of running two complex shows over a single Fringe, but there’s sometimes a note of hesitancy to his performance as he finds his way between topics, most likely the kind of thing that will get polished out over the next couple of weeks. 

Any fans of The Delightful Sausage will find a huge amount to enjoy here, too. 

• Chris Cantrill: The Bad Boy is on at Monkey Barrel Comedy (Niddry Street) at 4.20pm 

Review date: 17 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy Club