The Definitive Guide to Comedy
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Daran “Jonno” Johnson is no stranger to the Fringe as one-third of the sketch trio Sheeps. But it’s kind of a big deal for Jonno to go solo this year. Not just because he tells us he hasn’t done a solo show, and especially not as a stand-up, in …
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Kinda busy just whimsymaxxing!” That’s one way to sum up Bebe Cave’s hour-plus this year at Fringe (and just how long could this show be if she really took her whimsy to the max???), and she’s the one summing it up that way. Her show provides us with a …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ How’d Sydnee Washington get from awkward kid raised by her strict Christian elders in Oakland to VIP bottle girl in Manhattan nightclubs to sober stand-up comedian? That’s what this hour is, illustrated with many funny visuals and an energetic storyteller in Washington, who tells us she’s sitting down not …
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ What could’ve remained a simple sight gag has evolved into a powerful, personal and punchy clown musical. What a pleasant surprise! What genius choices Maya Ricote has made, turning this caricature into a distortion of her true self (Ay Am! after all, is but a Bizarro version of Maya!), …
⭐⭐⭐ Sometimes a basement show feels like a basement show. You need to be sitting up front to get up close and personal with character-based performance art like this. Immersion is critical to your enjoyment. Especially since so much of the hour relies about audience interaction. From the middle or …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Best Newcomer nominee in 2024, Li Jin Hao just released a version of that show (“Swimming in a Submarine”) on YouTube earlier this summer. During this hour, he jokes about how Show Business only rewards pitches that are somehow both familiar and yet brand new. If you watched …
⭐⭐⭐½ This is one of those 3½-star shows that’ll earn more stars as Torres gets deeper into Fringe. It’s not not a dead parents show. But Torres, a stand-up whose TV credits include performances on both Conan and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, does take us back to his …
⭐⭐⭐½ Lads of a certain age know who Keeley Hazell is. As her show’s title (based on her 2025 memoir) lays out, Keeley was a topless Page 3 model for The Sun tabloid in the late 2000s, and a cover model several times over for the lad mag FHM. What …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Egyptian-born, Cambridge-raised, Omar Badawy is a writer for SNL UK who’s full of LOLs such as this zinger: “Bringing an Arab Christian to your parents is like bringing Prince Andrew a 12-year-old … whiskey.” And yet his parents sent him to a Christian school. Why? When it comes to …
⭐⭐⭐½ As half of the sketch-duo Lazy Susan, Freya Parker received a Best Newcomer nomination at the Fringe in 2014. Since then, Parker has popped up all over BBC Radio, as well as onscreen in big movies such as Jurassic World: Dominion and Wonka. For her sophomore solo show at …
