Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Martin Angolo has waited ten years to make his Fringe debut, and Idiot Wind is as effortlessly professional a piece of stand-up as you would hope that experience on the circuit would produce. The Irishman is in command of his material, builds an easy, relaxed rapport with the audience, and has a well-developed sense of timing.

However, it’s all used in the delivery of rather nondescript content, gentle observational comedy with the occasional hack line and no strongly defined viewpoint.

He has some go at addressing the patently untrue belief that ‘you can’t say anything in comedy any more’, but only really goes to prove you can be ever so slightly edgy if you have a lot of charm and your intent is clear, as in his case. His gag about paedophile hunters, for instance, is a long way from joking about abuse.

The extent of his offensive stereotypes is suggesting that middle-aged women like biscuits, while punching down is limited to suggesting some amusingly inappropriate taglines for advertising campaigns.

He has a story about Tommy Tiernan facing calls to be cancelled back home for joking about African taxi drivers – a tale that takes quite a lot of telling for the recollection of the one quip he made about it onstage.

Slow-burning is his style, though, as he unhurriedly mulls how he’d not fit in on Love Island and the time he visited a strip club, prompting a rather tired metaphor about how those women’s jobs are similar to comedians’. 

Some of his one-liners have an even greater air of familiarity.  Nick Helm had a ‘Heinz-sight’ pun that made lots of ‘jokes of the Fringe’ lists in 2019, you can get Mother’s Day cards with ‘thank you for your cervix’ printed on them, and a mosque gag has long done the rounds on social media. 

None of this suggests a comedian striving for originality – and if you don’t care about that, Angolo is amusing company for the hour. But for the rest of us, this debut is ultimately unsatisfying.

Review date: 15 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Underbelly Bristo Square