Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Stamptown’s meteoric rise to occupy the vast 750-seat Pleasance Grand is impressive to behold. It’s also deserving - in recent years it’s been the best night out at the Fringe.

Last year’s room sat approximately 250 people, though. Will they be able to scale up their raucous late-night variety show format to work in a far larger room?

You may not be sure at first. The show opens with a lot of cheering and whooping for some particularly unimpressive hoop-acrobatics (which a few people - presumably because it’s after midnight on a Saturday night - actually give a standing ovation to). Many of the Stamptown’s classic clowning visual gags - a fall down stairs, Dylan Woodley taking a confetti canon to the crotch, Steffen Hånes’ vampire act scaring audience members - don’t work nearly as well in such a big space.

One thing that does translate well, however, is Zach Zucker’s central turn as his hyperactive-manbaby comedian parody act Jack Tucker. It’s still a frantic, freewheeling pleasure. The supporting cast of non-speaking roles - particularly sketch duo Siblings as inefficient stagehands - remain great to watch.

Then there’s tonight’s guest spots, which range from the excellent (Natalie Palamides and feminist acrobat troupe Yuk Circus) - to the solid (Huge Davies, Kemah Bob, Zaki Musa and Garry Starr, who crowd-surfs naked right up to the back of the room), to the middling (Cat Cohen, Michelle Braiser). When these guest segments aren’t quite working, they really take the energy and momentum out of the show, the audience just wanting to get back to the trademark anarchy that bookends them. 

In that context then, it’s a particular pleasure when Britanick’s set is gradually but entirely derailed by what is perhaps a more tightly-scripted version of said anarchy.

It’s a problem compounded by the fact that the line-up doesn’t quite feel as though it’s been fully scaled up to meet the needs of playing one of the biggest rooms at the Fringe. With the exception of circus performer Zaki Musa, every act here would - and virtually always has -  sat comfortably in smaller-scale iterations of Stamptown.

Moreover, billing yourselves as a 90-minute show but actually running 30 minutes longer - having already started 45 minutes late - definitely crosses the line from ‘ramshackle late night Fringe fun’ into just ramshackle.

None of these would’ve been huge issues in isolation, just when taken together. Stamptown haven’t disgraced themselves, but it certainly isn’t a home run either. There's still so much potential in the format: you have to hope they'll recapture the magic.  It’s just quite something to witness what, last year, was Edinburgh’s best night out, now become a middling one.

Review date: 5 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Mark Muldoon
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard

STEVE BENNETT WRITES: Mark went to Stamptown’s first show of the Fringe, I went to the last – and certainly most of the issues he mentioned had been fixed, with no tech issues and a performance that started on time (having been officially put back 15 minutes from show two onwards). The chaos had also successfully expanded to fill the much bigger space, with performers heading into the crowd, a big cast of extras, an impressive aerial act and a fuck-ton of confetti adding to the feeling of scale.

Running at around two and a quarter hours (compared to an advertised 90 minutes) the show remains way too long, even if overrunning is a standing joke. It’s as if they still haven’t cottoned on to the fact they might, just might, dick around a bit. Culling the guest stars – especially the more conventional acts that don’t stand out in a night of wild excess – might be a necessary kindness.

But under the winningly shambolic compering of Jack Tucker, it remains a rowdy celebration of the absurd and outrageous, a real festival spectacle to be embraced. 

Review date: 5 Aug 2024
Reviewed by:
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard