by ⭐⭐⭐½
A three-ring circus confined to one ring and no rules makes Stamptown one of those unique spectacles that’ll either make you shake with laughter or merely shake your head. Sometimes both in the course of the same set piece.
Zach Zucker still presides over the madcap mayhem as the purposefully “bad” comedian Jack Tucker, and he’s still backed by the same production crew and main sidekicks, but so much of Stamptown has otherwise changed since it first took the Fringe by storm years ago. For one thing, they’re about to make their Netflix debut at the end of this month!
For another, the show itself feels radically different than it did even this May when they filmed for Netflix in Los Angeles at the Netflix Is A Joke festival. And that version is different than what you likely saw at Fringe just three years ago. Perhaps they’re going through their own Eras. From circus, to cabaret, to full-on Robbie Williams, to well, now they’ve left Pleasance for the big top in the middle of the party that is the Assembly Gardens. And they’re now performing in the round, which in the first week of Fringe, they’re definitely still figuring out how to showcase some of their sillier bits and characters.
But on top of that, there’s a distinct sense that the inmates are running the asylum. At least in this first week.
Zucker as Tucker may joke that his friends are coming out in characters that sometimes make such little sense that they’ll ditch the character’s premise entirely. Viggo Venn, Zucker’s longtime pal and comedy collaborator since their youth studying under the now late-Philippe Gaulier (Stamptown takes its name from Gaulier’s stomping grounds in Etampes, after all), jokes about he was the first talent show winner with no talent. Yet the Britain’s Got Talent winner does have something new to show us.
And between the amazing circus acts such as Tara Boom and the guest sets from visiting stand-ups such as Leo Reich or Tadiwa Mahlunge (who cracked, “Guys I have nothing to plug. I’m here for a wedding.”), you will be amazed and entertained.
You just won’t expect to know how from one show to the next. Even when you think you know what’s coming. Because sometimes, even they don’t know what the show is. So the one thing you can expect this month is it’ll be even better the next time.
Stamptown plays the Palais du Variété at Assembly George Square Gardens during the 2026 Edinburgh Fringe.
