Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

An hour in the genial company of Sam Lake is a warm, chatty affair, cruising at the level of charming anecdote without soaring to the comedy stratosphere. With an accessible, charming presence, he feels more like a talk show host in waiting than a comic ready to storm the Apollo.

His debut show, Cake, is the tale of his engagement and wedding, the lavish affair he once planned downscaled because of a teensy global pandemic. The story is relatively modest, but he plays up the drama with every setback amplified to near-catastrophe. It befits his self-identification as camp – as if the T-shirt bearing the image of 2005 Eurovision entrant Javine Hylton did not give him away.

Married life couldn’t have come too soon for him. At 30, he considers himself decrepit in gay years – a feeling brought home when he encountered a chaotic young spirit confidently running riot at a nightclub. The weird ‘man noises’ the comedian made doing curls at the gym were another harbinger of ageing.

He tends to draw out his material, in no hurry to get to the punchline. And of the side routines seem tacked on, such as his obsession with reality TV and his desire to go on Love Island as the only queer contestant so he can be a ‘gossipy gay bitch’. 

It’s a one-dimensional view, especially since the Edinburgh-based Englishman doesn’t live up to that queeny stereotype. He comes across as an affable, relatively low-key man with a considerate husband and a circle of good friends, including the delightfully overexcitable Karen and fellow comics Olga Koch and Chloe Petts, who make cameos at the reception dinner.

Sure he has to contend with homophobic Ray at work and both treacherous weather and an unfortunate run-in with a pensioner on his big day, but his good nature is what shines through. He’s right not to covet the anarchic energy of that young clubber, for his vibes are just fine as they are. A few sharper punchlines would not go amiss, but his persona is a winning one.

• Sam Lake: Cake is on at the Pleasance Courtyard at 9.50pm

Review date: 25 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard