Latest news with #SimpleTown
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Simple Town review – these Pythonesque jokers could be your new best friends
With sketch comedy not exactly cresting a wave in the UK right now, why not import some cult-favourite exponents from the other side of the pond? If that were the thinking behind this fringe debut by NYC four-piece Simple Town – well, it might just be smart, fresh and funny enough to revitalise the form. It's sketch with something of the energy of improv, a hint of an easygoing get together with your coolest friends (OK, far cooler than my friends) – and the kind of freewheeling, elusive-logic comedy with which Sheeps have in recent years sustained sketch's flagging pulse. Identified as 'four teens in their 30s', Simple Town introduce themselves as they mean to go on: super-casual, faux-naive, coming at one another, and at our expectations, from odd angles. Their first sketch takes us back vaguely in time, to three Nasa bros aghast that a woman has been recruited to their space programme – because 'she can do multiplication in her head!'. Like later scenes, this one contains several movements, the borders porous between them, the comic point forever evolving and slipping beyond your grasp. If you like that sensation, of laughing without ever fully pinning down why, Simple Town are your new best friends. What's going on in the skit that pairs two cagoule-clad spare thumbs left alone together at their respective partners' reunion? This dotty choreography of social awkwardness extrapolated ad absurdum is as beguiling as it is barely explicable. You could read their firing squad sketch as a brilliant riff on the polarised US, where fierceness of conviction is matched only by woolliness of argument. It's also just a nugget of Pythonesque nonsense about dopey executioners. Some routines are simpler, like the solipsistic inner monologue of the audience member whose suggestion is accepted for an improv scene. Or like the show's closer, burlesquing middle-class American reverence for old Europe – although even that one morphs halfway into a four Yorkshiremen-style race to the bottom of US education. It's all accomplished with artless slacker panache by Will Niedmann, Caroline Yost, Felipe Di Poi Tamargo and Sam Lanier, posting a welcome reminder of how exciting team comedy can still be. At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 24 August All our Edinburgh festival reviews
The Guardian
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
You're definitely having a laugh! Six hot comedy debuts at Edinburgh fringe 2025
'There should be a buffet at every comedy gig,' says Manchester-based Molly McGuinness – and luckily for us, she's making that happen for her Edinburgh debut. Her laugh-packed sets, served with snacks and a warm conversational style, are inspired by the standup of Caroline Aherne. 'I like it to feel as if I'm talking to a friend,' she says. Slob began as a turning-30 existential crisis about reaching your potential, but when a rare disease left McGuinness in a coma, everything shifted. She will share the 'bizarre and surreal' experience of coma-induced delirium, tender reflections on 'the sweetness of the nurses' that cared for her, and a blossoming love story. 'A lot of people feel like a slob, but we're doing the best we can,' she Barrel, 28 July–24 August US group Simple Town make consistently brilliant short films, where everyday conundrums (what's the meaning of 'adroit'? What happens if you're late for a funeral?) escalate to extremes, or descend into meta-narratives about the absurdity of online content. The foursome, who started performing regularly in New York around 2017, are bringing an hour of 'pure sketch comedy' for their fringe debut. Their previous visits to the UK sold out fast. 'Our work is somewhere between alternative and crowd-pleasing. Sometimes it's brainy, 'comedian's comedian' humour, but we also work very hard for the shows to be silly, broad, fast-paced, and fun,' they say. 'So hopefully, both kinds of audiences will find something in the show to hate.'Pleasance Courtyard, 11–24 August Australian performer Jessica Barton started out in musical theatre and got her first taste of comedy at French clown school Gaulier. She began to 'play using song and movement, physical comedy and clowning', moved to London and immersed herself in its alternative comedy scene. Dirty Work combines her vocal talents with playful audience interaction. In character as Floppins – a Mary Poppins-esque figure intent on cleaning up the stage – she cleverly explores gendered domestic roles. 'Expect to have a lot of fun,' she says. 'Expect to be challenged and to rise to the occasion. Especially the men in the audience.' Dirty Work was awarded best newcomer at Melbourne international comedy festival and as she gets deeper into the character: 'I've enjoyed finding new things within the world I've created.'Underbelly Cowgate, 31 July–24 August Her assured presence and sideways perspective make Ayoade Bamgboye stand out on any lineup, despite having only three years of live comedy under her belt. She had been working as a writer when someone suggested she try it and Bamgboye is always experimenting, incorporating clowning, multimedia forays and different personae into her performances. She 'grew up between London and Lagos' and gives a unique twist on observational comedy: 'I'm looking at everything as if I'm on safari. I'm a curious silly billy.' Bamgboye says her comedy has sometimes been 'confrontational and caustic' with spicy punchlines on racism and colonialism, but with her debut she's ready to be more vulnerable, too: 'Audiences should expect something bittersweet.'Pleasance Courtyard, 30 July–24 August She first tried standup at university in Southampton ('We had a comedy society where all the nerds went') and quickly racked up finalist spots at the Funny Women and BBC new comedy awards. Now, Sharon Wanjohi is making her fringe debut with a show about self-help culture and the zeitgeisty coping mechanisms that are 'shoved down our throats' every day. 'I'm presenting myself as this 90s talkshow host, in the mould of Trisha and Oprah', Wanjohi says. 'I'm satirising self-help, but also breaking out of character to do standup.' You'll get a gen Z spin on societal issues like the housing crisis, but something 'goofy, silly, less grounded in reality,' Wanjohi Courtyard, 30 July–24 August This 90s-tinted debut from Irish comedian Roger O'Sullivan explores his relationship with his farmer father via Tekken and the rest of young Roger's favourite PlayStation games. He started out on Cork's small comedy scene eight years ago, where 'there weren't really any stakes, so any gig you'd do something new and try the weirdest thing. That's the mentality I've had from early on.' He's had success online with lo-fi animations, which he works into the show to great effect. 'I wanted to end with a callback to retro video games and thought it would be really funny if I learned 3D animation just for that.' Expect warm standup that melds 'a little bit of heart with absurdism'.PBH's Free Fringe @ Carbon and Hoots @ The Apex, 2–23 August
