Edinburgh Fringe comedy reviews: Daisy Doris May: Big Night Out | Phil Ellis: Soppy Stern | Fountain Lakes In Lockdown: A Drag Parody Play | Ria Lina: Riabellion | Nick Hornedo: Watch This When You Get Home

COMEDY

Daisy Doris May: Big Night Out ★★★★

Assembly George Square (Venue 8) until 24 August

It takes an outsize personality, reckless ambition and exceptional talent to launch a breakout comedy enterprise with the same name as Vic Reeves' legendary show. Yet drag king Daisy Doris May has just announced Big Night Out as her debut UK tour midway through her Fringe return, with considerable production backing. And it's not hard to foresee this character comedy showcase, a deliriously fun and absurdly queer evening, burning up venues across the land.

Kicking off proceedings with Teutonic directness and irrepressible nightcrawler energy comes the luminous fashionista Häns Off, imploring all his “bishes” to back him up as he preens, vogues and strikes poses in order to try and get into an exclusive VIP club. Häns' silver-moustachioed look might be Berghain bondage PVC meets lollipop man. Yet he's the kind of egotistical bluffer anyone can instantly relate to, obsessed with maintaining face and status and with an overwhelming FOMO. Recruiting models and designers from the crowd for an impromptu DIY fashion spectacle, distracting the bouncer, Häns has all the expressive subtlety and outrageous campery of a confetti cannon. However, borne on May's spotlight-sharing generosity, several audience members are given latitude to contribute to the night too, which the willing seize with alacrity.

Häns eventually gives way to new agey Antipodean spiritual guru The Divine Karen Moonstone, a chakra evoking menace unable to stop herself poking her nose into other people's auras, either in person or in the ridiculously harsh reviews she posts of businesses online. Although the weakest creation of the trio featured, something of a palate cleanser between two male characters, she does serve a role in setting up a romantic plot for Steve Porters, iPod DJ and enthusiastic stag-do best man. Puppishly loveable in his chain-sporting earnestness and adolescent devotion to his bros, he's nevertheless the old maid of his crew, beginning to get concerned as his friends are pairing off without him. No matter however, as the show's feelgood conclusion brings infatuation and keeps the party pumping.

JAY RICHARDSON

READ MORE: The Best Edinburgh Fringe Comedy 2025: Every show with a four or five star review from The Scotsman so far

COMEDY

Phil Ellis: Soppy Stern ★★★★★

Monkey Barrel 4 at Monkey Barrel Comedy (Venue 515) until 24 August

There may or there may not be plants in Phil Ellis's show. I could not possibly comment. What there certainly is, is a new jacket, a hat, and an hour of laughter that just rolls across his audience in perpetual motion, which is an extraordinary thing to be part of.

Ellis has an almost alchemic effect on material. There are points in the show that slightly dip and he does one of my least favourite things: telling us about another gig he had. But he somehow makes all of that irresistibly hilarious. The greatest fun comes, not so much in the chunks of material, but in the spaces in between. When something goes awry, when he randomly riffs, when the unexpected happens, that is where the Ellis genius comes out to play. In his asides. They are comedy gold and they make him laugh too – which cannot be a bad thing.

In addition to all these off piste, unexpectable laughs, when the comedy Gods were giving out gifts in the Manchester area, Phil was given the gift of self-deprecation. In his hands it is a beautiful thing. The show itself takes us highbrow, with a title – Soppy Stern – taken from a poem by that grumpiest of wordsmiths, Philip Larkin. It is about his family (Phil's not Larkin's), primarily his Mum and Dad, but of course, along the way Phil (“20 years on the circuit!”) shares memories of being lubed out of a rubbish bin by his headmaster, his favourite fight (he lost), Saturday Night Palsy, burying his Nana, and the terrible slow death of a young Golden Retriever. Yes, there is edgy humour (he says) and mention of 'sexy times'.

It is an hour-long marvellous mishmash that only he could make wonderful, which he does in just so many ways. Did I mention plants?

KATE COPSTICK

COMEDY

Fountain Lakes In Lockdown: A Drag Parody Play ★★★★

Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower (Venue 140) until 24 August

We’re going back in time. It’s lockdown, so it’s 2020. But it’s also an episode of Kath and Kim, so it’s the noughties. For those not in the know, Kath and Kim was a cult television series set in a suburb of Melbourne, with a lot of scenes in the fictional shopping centre of Fountain Lakes. It’s the perfect subject for a drag parody mash up – featuring Kath, the boomer housewife with terrible fashion sense and a bubble perm and Kim, her huge entitled nightmare of a daughter. There’s also Sharon, Kim’s second-best friend, a sweet befuddled girl perpetually injured from her latest hobby. All the catchphrases are here – and there’s also lip synching, Irish dance offs and a running commentary on the politics of lockdown.

The jeopardy comes when Kath suspects Kel (her husband) might be an anti-vaxxer. There’s also a farcical mix up when a basket of sex toys gets delivered – and no one knows who and what they are for. There’s a lot of material about the Melbourne lockdowns, which were the most severe in the world, but skilfully added context explains all the Australian references to a British audience. “Anyway… if you don’t understand it that’s just racist,” Kim snarls. She’s a scary vegetable.

Ozzie drag queens Art Simone as Kath, Leasa Mann as Kim and Maxi Shield as the hapless Sharon have all the mannerisms, the body language and the verbal tics perfectly while Scott Brennan – formerly of Neighbours – does an excellent turn as husbands Brett and Kel. It’s an over-the-top homage which is just as funny and ridiculous as the original. There are idiotic double entendres galore and even an appearance from Prue and Trude, the snooty shop assistants whose surprise appearance is greeted by the Kath and Kim devotees in the audience with whoops of glee.

CLAIRE SMITH

READ MORE: Fringe Firsts week one: we reveal the first five winners of the Scotsman's prestigious theatre prizes

COMEDY

Ria Lina: Riabellion ★★★

CabVol at Monkey Barrel Comedy (Venue 338) until 24 August

A mother of three with the same number of degrees, Rina Lina’s pin sharp show is concerned with change – from the precarious state of the modern world to her own body as it goes through perimenopause (interestingly one of the most popular subjects in Edinburgh this August).

She’s a comedian who doesn’t take sides, equally happy skewering the prejudice of wealthy right wing boomers with one breath and the moral certainty of Greta Thunberg with the next. The Swedish climate activist acts as the perfect segue to Lina’s own childhood, the daughter of a stereotypically ambitious Asian mother who held a macabre ‘funeral for her future’ when grades were slipping, spurring her daughter onto academic success.

What came next was anything but traditional, as Lina married a man twice her age. It’s a decision she illustrates beautifully – and hilariously – by looking at the interplay of oestrogen, testosterone and progesterone. As her hormone levels plummet two decades later, just as her children’s are soaring, the ‘second childhood’ of perimenopause leads her to reevaluate her life and make a big decision.

Superfluous crowdwork means the show takes a while to build momentum, but in full flow Lina is a force to be reckoned with – vocally dextrous and impassioned, ending with a call to arms for women to enjoy their ‘cougar puberty’.

DAVID HEPBURN

COMEDY

Nick Hornedo: Watch This When You Get Home ★★

Underbelly, Bristo Square (Venue 302) until 24 August

There’s a disclaimer at the start of this show warning that it treads the fine line between comedy and storytelling. In truth it feels more like an idea for the sort of film beloved by sensitive American men obsessed with Richard Linklater.

It’s the story of a series of crushes, including the high school sweetheart Hornedo broke up with via a breathtakingly pretentious video. He meets up with her 10 years later to revisit their relationship and its impact on their lives.

Hornedo is clearly a talented writer and performer but the level of self-absorption here is alarming, while the story isn’t interesting or funny enough to hold the attention.

DAVID HEPBURN

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