Bratchy - 'Beer and Loathing and Lost Wages' - Edinburgh Fringe review

Laughing Horse@ The Counting House, Aug 4th - 28th, 6pm - I don't really want to slag off Bratchy for a number of reasons. Firstly he's free. Secondly he's an underdog, and everyone loves an underdog. And thirdly, I just can't be 100% sure he's not the kind of guy who would track me down and smash a glass Irn-Bru bottle over my head. 

I suppose these are all factors that contribute to the general feeling that you really want to like Bratchy. But in places he really doesn't make it easy.

The first thing you notice about Glaswegian Bratchy is that he has a slight drugginess about him. Later in the show he is quite honest about being an "ex-party monster", but it's really an unnecessary admission as it is immediately apparent as soon as he steps on stage. To be honest, I quite like the Trainspotting-esque edginess of his character. However, I am in a fairly unusual position of being in the middle of a transition back into life in this country after a few years living overseas. Because of that, I am enjoying immersing myself again into the wonder of our Scottish anomalies and I would imagine feeling an instant kinship to a scruffy man with a druggie edginess to his character would be one of these anomalies.

'Jackson Voorhaar Can't Play Guitar' - Jackson Voorhaar - Edinburgh Fringe Review

Jackson Voorhaar Can't Play Guitar, The Laughing Horse@The Counting House, 4-28 August, 2.15pm, Free.

A long overdue sunny day in Edinburgh always takes me to the fantastic Pear Tree beer garden on West Nicolson Street, so it was back to its next door neighbour, 'The Counting House', for another go at a free comedy festival show. I had a Kiwi friend in tow, so what better way to introduce her to Edinburgh than an England-based Australian act? Well...lots of better ways, I'm sure she was thinking. Luckily my culturally indifferent gamble paid off.

Voorhaar lingers pre-show in the bar for a little self-promotion, which he does without arrogance in an appealingly awkward manner. Despite the fact he must hear "I thought you were Australian?!" twenty times a day in response to his recently acquired London accent, Voorhaar hasn't yet adopted the impatience towards irritating questions that seems so common in off-stage comedians. Happily justifying himself to yet another group of people that don't know him, this new fringe act nicely manages to drum up enough interest to almost fill the small, dark room allocated to him, an achievement that is particularly impressive at 2.15 in the afternoon on one of Edinburgh's approximate four days of annual sunshine.

Voorhaar manages to get his audience onside instantly and launches straight into his well-structured routine. 'Slick' would not be a word that would instantly jump to mind when watching him extend his elongated skinny-jeaned frame around the stage and swing his lion mane head of hair back and forth whilst donning a 'Guitar Hero' prop, but this act is definitely well-oiled and coherent. 

Voorhaar deals well with Unforeseen Circumstances, the dreaded arch-nemesis of so many new acts at this festival. These affirmations of quick-wittedness, mixed with an always popular touch of self-deprecation, sent his likeability stock soaring with the audience. Throw in a simplistic and fresh take on popular culture and controversial issues, and the course was clear for the comedian to steer his crowd safely through the shark-infested waters of sex, drugs, rock & roll and Satanism. These are all perilous routes which may have quite easily left a lesser talent floundering and drowning.

Voorhaar runs with the room and tests out his boundaries, vowing to stop at anything that results in "an immediate scab". Although there were a few quieter periods towards the end, this doesn't turn out to be much of a problem and the highlights definitely outshine the low. Someone who can get away with referring to Italians as "a little bit rapey" without receiving a single sharp intake of breath, despite the sobriety of a mid-afternoon international demographic, is definitely one to watch.

Both Voorhaar and his show are witty and likeably offensive. Confidently and warmly delivered without a hint of arrogance, 'Jackson Voorhaar Can't Play Guitar' is definitely worth a break from working on that disheartening milky sunburn.

'Dirty Word' - Kirsty Munro - Edinburgh Fringe Review

The first official night of the Edinburgh Festival had me heading straight to fringe venue 170, The Laughing Horse@The Counting House, a busy and popular pub that is part of  the Free Edinburgh Fringe festival and usually a good bet for some decent free laughs after a few drinks.

With a plethora of different shows to choose from in the multi-room venue, we settled on Kirsty Munro's 'Dirty Word', mainly due to enthusiastic and abundant flyer distributors and the promise of something a little cheeky. 

Unfortunately for a show promising to be an "alternative fusion of filth and feminism", the first night fell short of expectations, proving to be neither quite either.

In all fairness, a few unforeseen circumstances made Munro's first outing on this Fringe a little harder than it needed to be. For starters, a functional microphone really is an essential piece of kit, especially when facing the bleary-eyed stragglers of the Friday night drinks crowd who have managed to make it to 11pm. The mid-show entrance of a misguided delivery man who momentarily floated on stage, lingering confusedly like a fart in a trance, did not help her attempt at keeping the attention of an already distractable audience.

Although her recent festival preview show in Leicester seemed to go down well, "favourite" dirty words like "frou frou" didn't quite cut the mustard with a difficult Scottish crowd and unimpressed mutterings of "isn't that just a posh word for fanny?" began to circulate around the back rows. 

As individual conversations began to spring up throughout the room, Munro continued to flounder in her bid to capture the hearts and attentions of her audience. Despite a number of attempts to win us over with increasingly peculiar tales of promiscuity and drunkenness and a particularly bizarre momentary touch on rape, the promised 'shock factor' somehow never quite materialised. Keeping a smile on her face, she then had a pop at a couple of Bridget Jones-esque social dilemmas and even what seemed to be an allegory of a scene from the brilliant League of Gentlemen. However, it seemed that the damage had been done and after a while Munro appeared to accept that the interest of the room had been lost, reverting to some quiet flirting with the drunken lads in the front row.

Overall, as the show unfolded, I couldn't help but be reminded of that creeping feeling of disappointment that you get when you meet up with an old friend, drag out all your hilarious memories and realise with a blow that they're not actually that funny or shocking anymore. Exterior circumstances certainly did not do Munro any favours on her opening night, but unfortunately she failed to connect with the crowd in any way and the general consensus seemed to be that the dirtiest word of the evening came right at the end - "donations."

Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Festival starts today!

Check out http://www.edcomfest.com for show details and sign up to the mailing list for 50% off tickets. Remember that these are just a few of the comedy shows on this month and there are heaps of free events in different locations across the city.