Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

He might not have the backing of an agent or producer, but Jake Baker has brought a quietly impressive show to the Fringe. So quiet, in fact, that he has to be careful the fans on stage don’t drown out his gently-spoken delivery.

But while he might be a modest beta male, he doesn’t let that define his material. There are a few self-effacing comments, but the main take-out from the show is his endearing way of extrapolating the absurd from the everyday. 

Punchlines are quirky and whimsical but suggested by reality – anything from whether you would drink Poundland wine to learning a language from his washing machine to an inventive way of making the Olympics more ‘relatable’, as everything must be these days. This comes in a discussion about national pride and cheering for Team GB, foreshadowing some more political content to follow. 

Baker has a scientific background – a chemistry degree, he’s proud to tell us, from Plymouth, which he’s slightly less proud about. That informs his belief that robots will exterminate us all - but by accident – as technology isn’t inherently evil, a point he makes with a typically intelligent analogy. And there’s an excellent and unexpected flat-earther gag

With an engaging ‘nice guy’ vibe - although he has got it in for owls, the idiots – he is very empathetic, even to those with whom he might not align politically.

This becomes apparent as the lovely, offbeat, surreal-tinged observational material of the first half slides away to make way for wider issue-based material, which he expresses well, even though it’s not a patch, comedically, on the earlier stuff. 

His eagerness not to antagonise softens the edges of routines calling for a fairer society. For example, expresses an understanding for the more reactionary straight white men who feel squeezed out as more diverse voices encroach on ground they believed to be theirs.  

However, Baker will not encounter much resistance to his suggestion that billionaires shouldn’t have such a mind-blowingly disproportionate share of the world’s wealth as well as the unfair political clout that buys. So he has to put up some arguments from the most extreme of the free-marketeers to give himself something to argue against.

Still, such routines are intelligent and well-reasoned – even garnished with jokes – although his forte remains in the everyday. And on that he has a talent that shouldn’t be overlooked.

• Jake Baker: Unity is on at Just The Tonic at The Caves at 8.10pm

Review date: 20 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Just The Tonic at The Caves