I’ve just finished watching the Olympic ceremony ending, and am trying to draw parallels between this and the end of the fringe. Help me out, I’m struggling a bit here.

That might be because the contrast between the bang of the Beijing games finishing and the whimpering way the Fringe peters out couldn’t be more contrasted. For a start, there’s not even a real sense of when it ends in comedy-land. The if.com party usually signifies the climax of it all, but then we all go and gig the following day, so that’s not the end. And then only half of us are actually finished then; the rest have to do this bizarre Monday gig that is justified by the fact that it is a bank holiday (but not, I believe, in Scotland – though nobody seems able to confirm this). This water is further muddied by the fact that a handful of comedians cancel their last show as they can’t be arsed – or – as in some cases, it sells so badly as to not be worth it. A real pity after the typically super-busy final weekend that can easily sell out and give you some of your most responsive and rewarding audiences, but understandable. However, I won’t be doing that this year; and bizarrely, I’m relishing my final Monday, for two reasons that I’ll cover later.

I’ll rewind back 30 hours or so to cover my busiest day so far, last Saturday. It started early with a trip to the Edinburgh Food Festival, where I improvised my breakfast from 100 different varieties of pickles, jams, cheeses and whiskies on oatcake fragments snaffled from increasingly cynical stallholders. Not to be outdone by just about every other festival in Edinburgh, they had a ‘performance area’ too, where I saw (while stood – it was packed out) Hardeep Singh Kohli attempt to cook Pork Belly with a gooseberry Cranachan. I couldn’t hear him at first as the sound was useless and fed back when he stood next to the oven, and when I did, I still couldn’t see him as what lighting was provided was shining off his 1970’s style Adidas tracksuit. When my eyes finally acclimatised, it transpired that the gooseberry cranachan was actually raspberry, and the only thing I could hear him tell us is that he wasn’t actually much of a cook, with his only culinary reknown being his short stint on Celebrity Masterchef. This hasn’t stopped him releasing a cookbook which he was plugging every 5 minutes; though that frequency dropped markedly when he burnt a pan of sugar shortly after telling us how important it was not to burn it.

After that, it was off to do ‘On Heat’, Matt Forde’s panel show; the format having hardly changed from last year and still entertaining and baffling punters in equal measures. The show I sat in on was so laid back that team captains Mark Olver and Jon Richardson seemed to spend the entire hour the audience’s side of the 4th wall; though with the venue being the tent in SoCo, walls 1 through 3 were never going to be an issue. Still, a lot of laughs were had, especially regarding Stuart Hudson’s romantic failings at the hands of an amorous pig-farming love rival; and my rantings about the evil that is Johnny Vaughn got a good response also. As ever, I lost. I can’t help feeling this ‘Second’ thing is graduating from show title to all-out curse. Certainly putting a bet on the if.com results didn't help.

And then off to do my show – which, hooray, had sold out.



I’ve never quite understood the ‘sold out’ board – surely this is only for acts’ egos only. Why would a punter entering the courtyard want to know which shows they CAN’T see? It’s like having a menu in a restaurant only showing you what food is off. A much more useful system would be a daily list of ALL the shows in the Pleasance with the sold-out shows being rubbed off. But then, I guess it’s a tradition.

Thankfully my show was a good one (though not as good as tonight’s – that was a breakthrough show; I decided to just relax and play with the audience and unbelievably, cracked it. Oh well, I only did it with a day to go. This is reason No. 1 for me looking forward to Monday. Still not the best show though; that came the Monday before, which just had a magical feeling about it. After it, a lady from the audience came up to me and said, “that was the best show I’ve ever seen on the fringe, I cried throughout the end”. To which I said, “thank you”, and then, after a short pause, “I’m really sorry”. What’s the decorum for addressing strangers who have told you that you made them cry? Apology or gratitude?). Then it was a race off to host Jongleurs Edinburgh again, and then, with my voice beginning to crack, back to the Pleasance to host the huge BBC Comedy Presents Gala in Pleasance One. Acts included a very on-form Craig Campbell, a nicely chilled Carl Donnelly (who agreed with me regarding my thoughts on Russell Kane’s show - see below) and closing act Andrew Lawrence, who overlapped the if.comedy award announcements. No major surprises in the award to Sarah Millican, and well done Sarah, and while everyone agreed that DoD was totally deserving of the main award, there was definitely some surprise. In the Green Room afterwards, Ella from the BBC admitted to a dream/premonition in which she had (correctly) predicted the award outcomes, and while most people were quite shocked it wasn’t Rhod’s prize (as it was so universally accepted for how brilliant it was), myself and Carl agreed that Russell’s show had flashes of totally gobsmacking elements; where you felt that something almost unworldly was happening in how funny and focussed the show had become; a total sense of empathy with the performer and an ability to unlock your inhibitions about laughing so hard and long, that it almost hurt. I know it’s just my opinion, but it really was that good. And it wasn’t even perfect. Best comment came from Andrew Lawrence though, who jokingly commented, “Where do I get a new agent?” as his agency (Hannah Chambers Management) had scored the double with Sarah and David and no doubt will have their hands full with two of the hottest tours of the next 12 months.

No mention of the panel prize though, which I didn’t find out until I got to the if.com party, though by now I was truly exhausted from 7 hours of performing. Which might explain why I thought at first people were winding me up when they told me who the recipients were; all the comedians at the fringe. The prize: a free bar up to the value of four grand at a venue to be determined. Right you are. How ironic that the ‘spirit of the fringe’ should be to throw away £4K on a piss up nobody needed in a city we wouldn’t normally be visiting in return for the vague belief that we’ve achieved something. Well, if that isn’t the spirit of the fringe, what is?

Anyway, the upshot of this is that we can all now technically put ‘if.com’ winner on our posters next year. Paul Kerensa has put in his blog that he wishes there were no awards (a comment made at the party of an awards ceremony, though I’m sure he’s aware of the locational irony in that musing); simple solution Paul – if we all sport our ‘if.com’ winner prize on our posters, it’ll devalue the award enough that nobody will bother with it again. They haven’t thought this through, have they.
Too much drink and too much mixing of those drinks meant today was a tricky proposition. I was up at the crack of dawn to do Jon Richardson’s show on 6music - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/rh6m/. After my show, I went off to see Daniel Kitson’s show in the bizarrely steep Traverse theatre, where I bumped into if.com newcomer Sarah Millican and Gary Delaney. Her glee at winning is so infectious I almost felt triumphant just chatting to her. So pleased she got it – couldn’t happen to a nicer person. Sarah told me her post-Ed gala show will be at the Apollo; in one night, she could play to an audience 3 times the size of her entire Edinburgh run added together. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that as she did a bit of a girly gulp at that point. A word about the Traverse though (and yes, Jay Richardson is right, people really do need to know if a venue can detract from the enjoyment of a show). We found a row to sit together which was ridiculously uncomfortable; the seats were practically on the floor meaning your knees are up by your chest. It was like sitting in the back of a Porsche for an hour and a half – not comfy at all. That said, Daniel’s wonderfully poetic way with words always enthrals me and distracts me, and I felt many pangs of empathy in his sentiments. Definitely a good show though the worryingly over-enthusiastic crowd was clearly bugging him because on a couple of occasions he berated a punter for her rather shrill and dominating laugh – which to be honest I couldn’t hear. I guess being over-loved has its drawbacks too.

So, almost there now. One show to go – and tomorrow it will be performed to the newly crowned if.comedy newcomer, as Sarah and Gary had admitted to actually buying tickets to my last show, which I feel terrible about; I could have easily walked them in. I’m looking forward to it because Gary’s feedback is invaluable; he’s one of the few comics on the circuit who is as obsessive about the art and execution of stand-up as me, and therefore never short of a worthy insight. So to wrap up tonight, as promised, here’s my big list of shows for this year’s festival; in the case of the shows I’ve seen, I’ve got reviews that can be joined on to them, but as per Paul’s great blog entry of yesterday, it’s up to you to work out which one relates to which show.

Enjoy.

Shows I saw during the Festival
Richard Herring (and I saw the Preview)
Lloyd Langford (and I saw the Preview)
Patrick Monahan
Glenn Wool
Ivan Brackenbury
Justin Moorhouse
Andrew Lawrence
Rhod Gilbert
Andrew Maxwell
Dan Atkinson
Chris Cox
John Bishop
Aaa Standup
Jason Cook
Andy Zaltzman
Gav Webster
Jim Jeffries
Ian Stone
Russell Kane
Jimmy Carr
Danny Bhoy
Mark Watson
Tim Minchin
Markus Birdman
Comedy Reserve
SYTYF final
Edinburgh Food Festival
Daniel Kitson

• Great, but by his own lofty standards, not a vintage year.
• Should be seen by all comedians who want to understand how to put together a near-flawless show.
• Masterful and controlling, but a bit ponderous in places. Audience loved it throughout though.
• His best Edinburgh show yet. Best gag is the opening one though, and it doesn’t get as much as it deserves.
• Loads of great material let down by a lack of structure, but really good nonetheless
• Wish I’d seen this at the beginning of the run. A masterclass is feel-good delivery. Great.
• Good material, good comedian, but the venue did the show no favours. I really enjoyed the video section but some of the press didn’t agree at all.
• Unashamedly shambolic in large parts and just brilliant too. My top recommendation to other comics.
• Great to see a great comic who unlike others who have ‘made it’, doesn’t rest on his laurels and continues to work hard. My friends argued that this was his best show to date and I think I agree.
• Good and annoying in equal measures. Man has unlimited charisma though
• In places, disappointing – but only because it had the potential to be loads better. Still a good show though.
• Beautifully put together but surprisingly repetitive in places; definitely good but I still prefer last year’s show.
• A good second show and heartwarming to see a comic enjoying their craft so much.
• Most laughs I’ve had in the afternoon. Jokes stick in your head too. Excellent.
• Good. There’s a genuine rough gem in here.
• Funny though a touch frustrating – a good show but he’s capable of being so much better, and he probably knows it.
• As good as last year’s show, so I enjoyed it. No real message but that doesn’t matter.
• Edinburgh’s most underrated performer. Clever and funny.
• Good material made great by an ever improving comic in a frankly poor venue.
• A nice variation from the sort of thing I normally watch and genuinely clever in loads of places.
• Surprisingly good, and he owned the sell-out room. In my top 10. Shame the people he attracts to his gigs can be utter bell-ends.
• An ever-improving comic with a show that was being unfairly derided in some of the press. Loads to enjoy and unfair comparisons with his previous show were baseless.
• Very good, but maybe not quite as good as last year’s show, though the critics clearly thought the opposite of me.
• Some absolute high points and some utter rubbish too. Rollercoaster hour. Audience frankly had saint-like patience.
• 10/10 for invention and funny throughout as well. Blown away by his ever-expanding gift for voices which I never knew he posessed.
• Every mc’s worst nightmare.
• Exemplary. My favourite show of the festival. Even though it had loads of holes in it, there were moments when it took your breath away. Stunning.

Shows I've Been In
3 * Old Rope
4 * Late N Live
2 * Late Show Underbelly
Political Animal
Afterhours At The Dome
2 * Sytyf Semi
Mervyn Stutter
Lunch With The Hamiltons
3 * Bbc Comedy Presents
3 * Edcom8
25 * Stephen Grant
Stand Glasgow
2 * Jongleurs Glasgow
3 * Jongleurs Edinburgh
Montreal comedy showcase
E4 Podcast
2 * Comedians Countdown
On Heat
Chortle Student Awards Final
Fred Macauley Show, BBC Scotland
BBC 6 Music Jon Richardson Show
Forth 2 Morning Show

Shows I Should Have Been In
Electric Cabaret At C Venue (Nobody Turned Up)
Andrew J Lederer's Anthology (I Mistook 12:50pm For 12:50am)
Karen Bayley's Midnight Gig (Clashed With Another Gig)
Feeling Funny Downstairs A The Tron (Clashed With Another Gig)

People Whose Previews I Saw
2 * Lucy Porter
2 * Reg D Hunter
Hal Cruttenden
Phil Nichol
Michael Fabbri
Bethany Black

Stuff I Wanted To See But Couldn't
Fakespeare
Rob Heeney
Literally
Mort
Free Fringe Show
Comedy O Clock
On The Waterfront
Michael Fabbri
Neil Delamere
Craig Campbell
J J Whitehead
Maeve Higgins
Karl Spain

Overlap Impossibilities
Kerry Godliman
Zoe Lyons
Pappy's Fun Club
Terry Saunders

People I Could Never Get Into Because They Sold Out
Otis Lee Crenshaw
Sarah Millican
Michael Mcintyre
Jon Richardson
Tim Vine
Ed Byrne
Steve K Amos

3 days to go and try as I might, I can't hold back the highly self-indulgent philosophising. I'll do my best not to do all of it 'out loud’ as I’ve spent the last week reading a lot of other people’s blogs and realise that in many cases with blogs, not only is less more, even less is practically morish.

The problem here lies in that the final few days up here are spent thinking whether your Edinburgh has been a success or not. Last year I had a breakthrough year, so keeping the momentum was going to be tricky. And it has been. But that’s a discussion for another blog; you never have a true perspective of how good your festival has been until it has finished; and seeing as it hasn’t yet, I’ll hold back on that one.

What I will do though is talk about the effect doing a show for nearly four weeks can have on you. For a start, it’s groundhog month. Doing the same show every night has massive advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are simple; you get to perfect and polish a body of work in a way you’d never be able to do on the circuit. All that stage time – no matter what level you are at in your career, can’t hurt. The disadvantages are slightly more cryptic though; on top of the drain (emotional, physical, mental) of doing your show each day, you start feeling almost like someone with a day job; true enough, it may only be an hour a day, but you start to run out of the motivational energies that keep you pepped the other 11 months of the year. And this year I’ve found that if you include a personal / heartfelt element in your show the net result of saying it each day is the complete polar opposite of what you think it might be.

I’m not saying I’m at Jason ‘death’s door’ Cook levels of personal tragedy* (please note this is a running joke with Jason after an earlier blog insinuated that Jason is a near-suicidal character. I would like to reiterate that I still cannot confirm or deny this.) but the passing remarks within my show about my ongoing and increasingly difficult divorce – which aren’t discussed in any detail and are played for laughs – are actually getting harder to say each night. I originally thought that putting a personal element in would numb me to the effect of the true story behind it, but actually it just throws it into sharp, repeated, focus each day, and that’s not what I wanted to do at all. But then even worse, is the actual premise of the entire show, which is all about how I’ve come second in life. The purpose of this show is to try to celebrate my near-miss successes both in my social and professional life, by highlighting and laughing off my failures, but actually it’s making those “almost-moments” of this year’s Fringe even more stark and annoying.

And by this I mean the review that was editorially bumped down from 5 to 4 stars which could have changed the whole perspective of my fringe, the press people who ran out of space and time to publish their pieces on me, the important TV and international festival bookers who just missed the start of my show and therefore couldn’t see me, the three ‘completely random’ shows that were frankly abysmal and just so happened when the if.com judges / main reviewers were in; I could go on, but I won’t, because it makes me sound like a whinging tit. The only problem is, whereas in previous years, I could laugh off and move on when these sort of bad-luck stories surfaced up, I am now doing a show about how they have shaped my life; and therefore they’re plaguing me each day as I relive my most famous (and anecdotally funny) failures. Anyway, in summary, my show topic was a very good one, but the net effect of doing the show each night has backfired. Some days I just feel miserable after reliving it all and it’s all of my own making. Nuts.

With this in mind, it’s probably quite poetic that I came 2nd in Comedy Countdown to Alex Horne (who, might I add, has been on ACTUAL countdown, proving how bloody good he is). I lost by a single point. I would have won if ‘dueted’ was a word, but it wasn’t. Arse. That said, I clearly had an evil streak in me; I managed to get the numbers game to 666 and thought the audience conundrum was ‘daemonics’ when in actual fact it was ‘comedians’.



Alex quite sportingly allowed me to keep half of the trophy (the top half) of a glass bowl. Here I am wearing it as a hat.



And spreading my dirty ‘coming 2nd’ curse involved top Brighton new comedian Seann Walsh who came 2nd in this year’s So You think You’re Funny. Seann wasn’t helped by a – shall we say - ‘not quite on form’ Rhona Cameron bringing him on cold for the start of the 2nd half, but he still acquitted himself admirably. Sean won £1000 for coming 2nd – not bad – but I know how much the £4K for winning would have actually changed his life (genuinely) so I think he was gutted in that respect. Either way though, he’ll go on to be an immense comic. What’s so good about him after just a year of doing stand-up is that he’s utterly unique in delivery and he’s getting there in content too. The best definition I’ve heard about him so far is ‘like a surfer Dylan Moran’ but even that’s not that close. Look out for him.

Oh, and speaking of winning a grand – but less poetically – I came 6th in the 'best joke in Edinburgh' poll on the TV channel Dave. The winner (who got that grand) was fellow Brightonian Zoe Lyons (and yes, Brighton really is the new up and coming circuit, in the same way Bristol was 4 years ago and Manchester 4 years before that). Her joke – and mine – is here. Well done Zoe.

Anyway. Unlinked to today’s post, I saw Andy Zaltzman’s show , which was ace (and I shared a cab there with Karl Spain who was performing in Stand 2 upstairs at the same time, which was embaressing as I really should have seen Karl instead), I bumped into a very svelte looking Jimmy Carr on the way home and stopped for a great chat about his brutally busy upcoming tour (to give you an idea of just how famous he is now, people were taking cameraphone pictures of him while we talked – just surreal), then I went home to eat and go for a quick meeting before my show, which went surprisingly badly and frankly upset me; and for a completely unrelated reason, had the show from hell today in which 2 people were ejected by security for heckling not just me, but other members of the audience and the warm-up computer. That’s right, they shouted abuse at an inanimate object. One for a future blog entry again, methinks.

And then it was racing off to Jongleurs Edinburgh to host the show there – I got there in good time but that still didn’t stop the Jongleurs staff getting confused and thinking I was 2nd act Steve Williams and delaying the show until I ‘arrived’, while I was actually there. Easy mistake. The other acts on the bill were Kerry Godliman and Janey Godley which makes you wonder how much of the booking at Jongleurs is done alphabetically. Afterwards, I met Maria Kempinska (sp?) - the Jongleurs co-owner - who was in the audience. I’ve never met her before and she’s really nice. I had no idea what to expect though – though you do panic slightly thinking, “if she hates me, that’s a fifth of my weekends diary gone”. Oh well. Let’s see what calls I get on Monday.

I was going to finish my blog by slightly (totally) ripping off Paul Kerensa’s idea, as I’ve also got a big list of shows I’ve seen; including ones I’ve been in, and then the rest of the shows that were on my ‘to do’ list and what happened to them. However, it’s dead late now and I’m off to the food festival tomorrow and need an early (it’s 3:30am) night – hence I’ll do that tomorrow. So I’ll finish ‘on topic’ by saying the one place I hope my ‘coming second’ curse doesn’t spread to is my original tip for if.comeddie success; Russell Kane. In fact, I really have put my money where my mouth is; If this bet comes good, it’ll cover the money I spent on badges and yo-yos in 2006, which still haunts me to this day.

Jay Richardson, him of Scotsman reviewing fame, has replied to my original blog post regarding reviewers, which I've cut and paste below (he couldn't get the 'comment' facility to work). This, theoretically, is a review of 'reviewing the reviewers'. Yes, my head is hurting now.

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Hi Stephen. Enjoyed your set the other night. And most of this post is spot-on. But I must take mild issue with a couple of your points as I have pressing work I'm procrastinating from.

Firstly, I think that if the review word count allows the space (and frequently it doesn't) a reviewer can have an obligation to note external factors outwith the comic's control. While acknowledging that it may not be the performer's fault, the reviews are primarily for the punters (specifically at this festival and visiting these venues in the case of many publications) and if they're paying a decent amount of money for a venue where water leaks from the roof every night and affects enjoyment of the gig, that is potentially worth inclusion. Playing devil's advocate, why shouldn't reviews of shows in consistently hot venues note the liquid or confectionary bribes that the comic supplies the audience with to ease their suffering? Sadly, it may have far more bearing on their enjoyment of the show than all of that comic's years on the circuit.

Also, if there's an especially drunken heckler who affects the direction of the show (ie the comic announces that they're dropping a large portion of it to deal with this idiot) it should be worth noting that this was not a typical performance.

Secondly, in the case of John Gordillo's show, I can only speak for the Scotsman. While they obviously respond to buzz about specific shows, that particular review was scheduled long before the Chortle review appeared, so it's not always a case of being dedicated followers of fashion. The online nature of Chortle means that their reviews can appear the following day or so, whereas the same cannot be true of a newspaper where a multitude of factors go into deciding what goes into any day's coverage.

The critical process of reviewing comedy undoubtedly should come under greater scrutiny. But, and I may be wrong here, there seems to have been a greater degree of 'student publication' bashing at this year's Fringe from comics as well. Much of it is doubtless justified when, as you say, a cast-iron headliner like Danny Bhoy or Glenn Wool receive an ill-informed one star review (though is it unknown for a top comic to turn up on the night, decide they don't like the audience and essentially take the money and run? Or begin coasting once they've had all the national reviewers in?). Anyway, I imagine there's very few comics out there who've turned down quoting a ridiculously hyperbolic five star review on their posters because they question the reviewer's experience and credentials.

Yours,
Jay Richardson

Just an ad-hoc blog entry from me after the previous set of marathon submissions, to say that after my piece on reviewers (which I’m sweating on slightly – and I’ll explain why in a few days, as the reason for this delay will become apparent) I have had the first of those reviews I mentioned, in The Stage; and it is here.

Even though The Stage doesn’t have a star rating, they have a ‘must-see show’ stamp, their highest recommendation, which they rarely to give to comedies. And hooray, I got one. That faint ‘whispy’ noise is me punching the air, albeit feebly. No Fest review out yet though and their website appears to be down. Which is still an improvement over ‘The National Student’, whose fringe review website doesn’t actually appear to be up, and apparently hasn’t been all festival. Meaning their reviews so far this year aren’t actually being published – in either printed or online form. I actually feel sorry for the reviewers.

Favourite review of the day though, goes to Jay Richardson’s review of Sarah Millican, which actually gives a quotable review of her boyfriend. If you check here, you can read about “the unremittingly vicious comic Gary Delaney, master of the one-liner”. Actually, that’s his bit in total; but such is the influence of Edinburgh you can be reviewed without actually having a show, or even being here.

As this is pretty much a non-diary blog, I thought I’d thrown in some random pics that I hadn’t posted yet:


John Ryan hugging Janey Godley. It’s hard to tell, but who means this the least?


Carl Donnelly and John Robbins – still best of friends just over halfway through the run of their double-headed show.

I’m not sure what the origin of the statement, ‘comedy is the most subjective artform in the world’ is, but it has so many uses. It can allow you to shrug off a terse appraisal from a mouthy punter who didn’t like your act; it can help justify a glowing reference of a comedian you cannot stand or do not rate, and is a great appeasing statement when a group of people go to see a show and as many of them hate it as love it. It works so well for a simple reason; it’s true.

Which is why the whole concept of reviewing comedy should be taken with a pinch of salt – everyone can speak for themselves, but only the most pompous individual could genuinely think that they’ll speak for everybody when it comes to assessing what is ‘funny’. The only opinion any reviewer can state that is unarguable is their own, and even in a small room, that opinion is a tiny percentage of the total.

Of course, in comedy, the credibility of those opinions varies on the basis of how knowledgeable and balanced the reviewer is with comedy as a genre. And the very best reviewers can be determined by a number of factors; including what they choose to ignore, which is just as important as what they notice. For example, they’ll ignore the environmental concerns such as how uncomfortable their seat might be, or technical problems during the show, that are clearly unique to the moment in time they are there; and bizarre occurrences outside of the comedian’s remit such as persistent hecklers, or external noises that are clearly one-offs. And this skill becomes even more pertinent in Edinburgh, when a show will be performed over a ‘run’ and the reviewer has to be able to imagine the typical scenario the show will be seen in, even if the show seen is far from a normal one.

The only element that it remains a grey area as to whether it should be ignored, is the reaction of the rest of the audience. A weak reviewer who dislikes (or likes) a show when the rest of the crowd acts the complete opposite may feel brow-beaten into changing their opinion. Fortunately, most reviewers don’t do this. However, the opposite can be equally disingenuous. In recent Edinburgh years I’ve seen comments such as ‘this show was crap; and the only reason the rest of the crowd laughed is because they were friends/fans/delusional/retarded.’ Can I just tell the reviewers out there, this rarely ever happens; if someone else laughs and you didn’t, it’s because *they* found it funny, and you didn’t. Simple as that. You aren’t wrong, but neither are they. Sure, it might have been a joke that was ‘beneath’ you, or possibly, one that went ‘over your head’, but it’s still a joke even if you didn’t laugh. A comedian has to learn very early on that an audience is very rarely ‘wrong’ – it’s themselves. This is something a reviewer doesn’t have to learn, but it would give them a much more rounded perspective if they did.

A slightly more realistic and considerate comment will read along the lines of ‘this part of the show wasn’t for me, but large portions of the crowd found it funny’. This at least acknowledges that some people enjoyed it. The problem here lies in the fact that it’s really easy for the most established reviewers to be pompous enough to think that an entire audience is wrong – and in some rare cases this includes reviews where the reviewer liked it much more than the audience (though these are rare occurrences indeed, mainly because a ‘not-as-comedy-literate’ crowd will be supposedly easier to coax into laughter than your hardened, comedy saturated journo). I’ve seen reviewers argue an audience to be comprehensively wrong, proving themselves to be seemingly as worthless as the most inexperienced reviewer who may base their opinion entirely on duration and depth of laughter. But there is a good reason for this; if you see enough comedy, you become hardened to the simplest devices and the hackiest lines, and like any drug dependency, the basic simple stuff no longer rocks your boat. You need your comedy tougher, more layered, more intricate and more intense; and suddenly the route-one gags that were knocking you senseless are suddenly leaving you cold. You scowl at the comedically illiterate crowds who worship the most basic and derivative of acts; even though those performers could wipe the floor with a full room of revellers in weekend gigs around the country, when they play to the sort of audience who may only watch live comedy once a year, or maybe even once in their lifetime.

Which is why those sort of ‘circuit acts’ get butchered in Edinburgh reviews by the more established reviewers, but sometimes worshipped by the newer reviewers who don’t possess a wealth of comedy viewing to judge them against. And in recent years, the gulf between these two types of reviewers, both essential to the constant drip-feed of press on acts, has widened and become somewhat acrimonious. The Scotsman has taken to boasting that their reviews are written by ‘serious journalists, not unqualified students’, though it has to accept that the vast majority of their journos were once exactly the latter, and were it not for these publications, they wouldn’t have got the skills they now have. Search online for the reviews of Terry Saunders for a good example of this gulf – and when there, you’ll see one of the most negative reviews of him complaining about the room he is playing in. This is no isolated incident either; I’ve seen reviewers complaining about the seat layout, the temperature (it’s a lot hotter for us you know) and the venue staff outside the door. Fair enough, these are all valid comments, but they’re not a reflection on the show or the performer, and shouldn’t be used to rate them as such. And certainly reviews criticising what the act is wearing only highlights the inanity of the reviewer, nothing else.

Yet this is just the tip of the iceberg. One reviewer recently commented at the top of his review how he was 5 minutes late to arrive at a show and was worried he might get picked on when he walked in halfway through. For God’s sake, how can you review a show that you missed nearly a tenth of? That same reviewer then prophesised as to why that comic was on at a 11:30pm slot, concluding that it was the smuttiness of their material; when clearly, as any comic on their debut year knows, that comic was on at this time because that was the only timeslot offered to him. I’ve seen comics blamed for so many elements that are outside of our control I wouldn’t be surprised to see a show marked down this year because it was raining.

And there’s the maddest part of it all; ratings, or more specifically, the star ratings. This matters – and I mean, really, really matters – to Edinburgh comics in a way that probably only Olympic athletes can currently comprehend. But the whole concept of a 5 degree rating for ‘the world’s most subjective artform’ is ludicrous. There will always be people who love a show and likewise, people who hate it. Sure enough, the proportions will vary as inevitably, some shows are better than others, sometimes exponentially so, but if you catch that rare person who loved a seemingly bobbins show, then bang – there you have it – a 5 star review goes up on the posters and suddenly it’s the talk of the town. And it really is. Look at John Gordillo; a great comedian, but at the Fringe outset, not appearing to have any particular selling point to pop his head over the parapet. Suddenly, there’s a 5 star review in Chortle, and the press and the public descend on his show like it’s a helipad. Totally deserving, but all as the result of a whim of one reviewer. I remember this effect from my 5 star review last year that helped me practically sell-out my run; I was under no illusions as to thinking this rating meant I had a perfect show, but it certainly meant that everyone was suddenly curious as to what it was I was doing that was so well regarded.

Within the comedy industry, that rating means an ugly competitive streak raises its head, and suddenly people are comparing themselves to comics they’ve secretly felt superior/inferior to all year. But on the basis of what? The random preference of a 19 year old Geography student? The system is so flaky and inherently flawed that most comedians would be better off rolling dice to determine a pecking order.

And of course, the flipside to this, is the 1-star review. I remember Glenn Wool getting one, and Danny Bhoy too. These guys couldn’t be more different – yet from a circuit perspective, both are cast iron headliners. What happened? Well, their shows both rubbed reviewers up the wrong way. So dripping in vitriol were these reviews that you started to wonder if it was personal – after all, I imagine on the nights in question, not only did these guys do a good show, they probably had the rest of the crowd in fits of laughter. The 1 star review is something special; you almost have to work at it for it to be that negative. A good comic who just stood up reading jokes from a book would get 2 stars. To get a 1 star review, you need to mine deeply into the most hated element of a reviewers psyche and twang all its strings. It takes effort.

But you can go lower that 1 star. The edfringe website allows you to select 0 stars as a review, which gives you an effective range of 6. And Broadway Baby has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and ‘5 plus’ stars. That’s also a range of 6. And on top of that, the Guardian’s ‘rapid reviews’ give – wait for it – a mark out of 10. Are these rating systems diluting the star system? No, not at all – it was always arbitrary at best and only someone with the value system of an exam marker would see any relevance. It’s desperately sad that it is the wording of the review that should be key; the Stage don’t give stars and never have, and their reward for this is that most of their Edinburgh reviews rarely make it onto comedian’s quotes, so obsessed as they are with ‘being scored’.

The worst thing about the star rating is that it makes no allowances for the subjective nature of comedy; it is just a scoring preference of the reviewer and the reviewer alone – yet it will never be treated as such. I recently saw a review this year which I discussed with Russell Kane where they said an act was ‘completely like Marmite – you’ll either love him or you’ll hate him’. A perfectly realistic quote. Star rating? 3.

Anyway, tonight I had the Stage, Fest, and The Scotsman in, and the reviewers in question from two of them are responsible for some of the quotes in my article above. They all saw the same show and I expect three completely different reviews. Will I be annoyed by that? Will I fuck. It’ll prove how subjective comedy is and be honest, we all knew that already.

Just to wrap up, here’s my favourite review fuck-up so far.

All Andrews are equal, but some Andrews are more equal than others.