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Scotsman
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Four Star Edinburgh Fringe Festival Comedy 2025: 12 shows the Scotman critics have loved you can still get tickets for this weekend
It's approaching the end of the first week of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the reviews have been pouring in. With the physical programme containing over 3,350 shows across 265 venues, it can be a daunting task to work out what exactly you are going to see. At The Scotsman we review hundreds of shows every year, with the best receiving a sought-after four or five star rating. This year we have yet to award a comedy show with a rare five stars, but there have been several that have earned four stars. More importantly, several of those still have ticket availability for this weekend (August 8-10) so you can go and see what all the fuss is all about (bad luck if you wanted to see American star Rosie O'Donnell though - she's totally sold out after her four star review earlier in the week). Here are 12 four star comedy shows our team of critics would recommend you see this weekend. 1 . Patrick Monahan: The Good, The Pat, and The Ugly Patrick Monaghan is on at the Gilden Balloon Patter Hoose until August 24. What we said: "His kind of funny is an irresistible force and he doesn't leave anyone behind." | Contributed Photo Sales 2 . Thor Stenhaug: One Night Stand Baby Thor Stenhaug is sold out this Friday and Saturday but there are still tickets left on Sunday and for the rest of his run until August 25 at the Pleasance Courtyard. What we said: "The boyish, almost perma-smiling comic has an irrepressible sunniness, eliciting big laughs for his carefully apportioned bleakness." | Contributed Photo Sales 3 . Ada and Bron: The Origin of Love There are still tickets left for Ada and Bron's 11pm show at the Pleasance Courtyard, throughout its run ending on August 24. What we said: "He's highly watchable and versatile. She's a future star, recalling Caroline Aherne, Tracey Ullman or Morwenna Banks' most memorably girlish turns." | Contributed Photo Sales 4 . Pierre Novellie: You Sit There, I'll Stand Here Pierre Novellie has sold out a couple of his shows at 7.05pm at the Monkey Barrel, but there's still availability for most dates, including this Friday and Sunday (Saturday's sold out, but if you arrive early and queue you may still get in). What we said: "It's rare for an hour to whizz by so fast, for nothing to be for one to wish for a show to be much longer." | Contributed Photo Sales
Scotsman
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Edinburgh Fringe Comedy reviews: Patrick Monahan: The Good, The Pat and The Ugly Jack Traynor: Before I Forget Andrew White: Young, Gay and a Third Thing
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... COMEDY Patrick Monahan: The Good, The Pat, and The Ugly Gilded Balloon (Venue 24) ★★★★☆ About 45 minutes into his first performance of the Fringe, Pat Monahan takes a glance at his set notes and says: 'I am very aware we need to get this show started.' There are just six of us in the room but, by that time, we are all just so relaxed and full of laughter and funny that we would happily go with the guy whatever he wanted to start. He has a voice so rough you could grate cheese on it and a comedic delivery that lies somewhere between boyish enthusiasm and sheer joy. If you are looking for wit and carefully crafted lines, please try further on. If you want hard line politics or sharply honed observation, this is not really what he is for, although the section on golf (unlikely, I know) is fresh, spot on and very funny. But Pat Monahan could deliver the Shipping Forecast and it would have you grinning and giggling uncontrollably. This is a great and rare gift. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Patrick Monahan in The Good, The Pat and The Ugly | Contributed From the six of us in the room, together with some chunks of the show as planned, and the kind of warmth you could fire a bap on, Monahan creates (to say 'crafts' would be ridiculous) a genuinely wonderful hour. It doesn't flag for a second – which is extraordinary, as it often seems he has no more idea of what is coming next than we do. His kind of funny is an irresistible force and he doesn't leave anyone behind. Everyone is brought into the laughter zone at this gig. More than many comics – certainly many at his level – Monahan does not do a show. He is the show. Despite himself, I suspect. But it is a truly delightful thing to be part of. Kate Copstick Until 24 August Make sure you keep up to date with Arts and Culture news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here. COMEDY Jacob Nussey: Primed Pleasance Courtyard (Bunker Three) (Venue 33) ★★★☆☆ With the intriguing promise that comedy could facilitate an exposé of Amazon in a manner that more serious reportage might find legally actionable, Jacob Nussey's Fringe debut pledges to unpack his experience toiling in one of the retail giant's warehouses. Unfortunately, his delivery can't match Jeff Bezos'. And he knows it. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The main problem the Mansfield native has is that his low-energy mien and generally impassive face, allied to his often grim, alternately Dickensian and dystopian history of soul-destroying, low-paid work conspires against him. That's a real shame though. He's got a full CV of crap employment and he's spent his boredom productively, filing away telling details for illustrative if unappealing visions of life scratching a living with few aspirations. A decent and versatile joke writer, still finding himself as a performer, Nussey's self-aware enough to acknowledge and draw humour from these limitations. Yet it's not a straightforward sell. Focusing on the human tedium, he's no union firebrand seeking to overthrow capitalism. He accepts his and the public's complicity in a system that prioritises convenience over morality. He gets political in a measured fashion, landing some amusing jabs at billionaire greed but there's nothing here to trouble Bezos' lawyers. Still, Nussey's recent escape into stand-up is cause for cheer. Jay Richardson Until 25 August COMEDY Jack Traynor: Before I Forget Pleasance Courtyard (Bunker One) (Venue 33) ★★★☆☆ Heralding the arrival of an exciting, fiery talent, the roistering Jack Traynor barely has a show but hugely compelling stage presence. Funded by an excellent initiative from the Blackfriars pub in Glasgow and Brass Tacks Comedy, the Cumbernauld stand-up laments being 'the only Scottish act doing an hour at the Pleasance'. Which is not strictly true but damnably close enough to depress. With all the carpe diem of a competition winner taking his chance to storm the middle-class ramparts, what Traynor lacks in structured routines he makes up for with booming, can-do charisma and rascally energy. His basic conceit, the appealing aspects of dementia, as experienced by his grandfather and his likely inheritance given his family's history with the condition, happily fits with his haphazard delivery of random anecdotes, cemented by some superb, instinctive crowd work – seeking out fellow misfits, such as those who've spent time in prison, and building sustained rapport. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad His avowed appreciation of Susan Boyle, to the apparent confusion of his once cannier grandfather is typical of the comic. Though perhaps not fully finessed enough in an early preview, it explores his vulnerability behind his front foot bluster. Hearing an authentic, working-class Scottish voice at one of the Edinburgh Fringe's biggest venues shouldn't feel so refreshing. Jay Richardson Until 24 August COMEDY Andrew White: Young, Gay and a Third Thing Monkey Barrel Comedy (Cabaret Voltaire) (CabVol 2) (Venue 338) ★★★☆☆ After five days at last year's Fringe, Andrew White's classy, composed exploration of identity returns for a longer run. Taking its title from his agent's advice after he became a full-time comic, that he required a third adjective to set him apart, he speculates as to what that could be. Keenly picking his character apart, the genial stand-up both confirms and confounds preconceptions about himself. That he's a guilt-ridden, privileged white liberal is virtually a given. Yet he's also prone to getting caught up in the most toxic aspects of sport fandom, even if he invariably finds a showy, musical theatre angle to make it his own. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Weaving queer history and social commentary about class, race, homophobia and trans rights through personal anecdotes, chiefly with reference to the experience of his non-binary, Jamaican-Irish partner, and the bigotry or doom-mongering of his West Country relatives, it's all shared with admirable lightness of touch, only evoking an inclusionary message at the end. More directly, it's also a well-aimed kick at simplistic pigeonholing and profiling. Despite recurrent recourse to the singular size of his manhood, the wry, floridly witty White contains multitudes. And to paraphrase his astute former English teacher, he's a pleasure to listen to. Jay Richardson
