Fringe comedy reviews: Roger Prick | Jake Baker | Hannah Byczkowski | Mario Adrion | Leo Hincks

Roger Prick: Sexopolis ★ ★ ★ ★

Underbelly, Cowgate (Venue 61) until 30 August

More than simply a Paul Raymond caricature, Han Whyte's louche alter-ego, Roger Prick, is at the centre of his own universe, in correspondence with our reality, yet lording it over a detailed hyper-exaggeration of it too.

From 1970s Soho to the present day, Prick's Sexopolis is a naughtier milieu than a seedy one. And played by Whyte in unflattering, corpulent drag, the man himself is oddly charming, a roguish buffer doing his best to catch up to feminism despite his considerable propensity for sin and the flesh, as he stumblingly transitions from proud pornographer and swordsman about town to woke “erotic novelist”.

Like Whyte, Prick is also an illustrator. And the visual imagery she frames the piece with evokes a quintessentially British cartoonishness. But where Whyte is sharp, crafting surprisingly elegant gags about Prick's eyebrows and interacting nimbly with the audience, Prick is largely oblivious. He knows that Guy Blokeman, his hero and own thinly veiled likeness, is a misogynist dinosaur out of time. Yet he clings to the cut and thrust of his adventures, making only superficial tweaks to his excitable prose, paying lip service to concepts such as consent and female autonomy.

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Naturally, Prick's casual sexism and entrepreneurial antics have aroused a feminist backlash, which for a time threatens to inhibit the old roué, though he prefers the narrative of a good woman changing him.

Whyte is never savage enough to be incisively satirical. And Prick is a misguided throwback rather than a cold-eyed predator, so the comedy is only political in the broadest sense. The joke is very much on the venerable pervert. Yet he retains a devilish twinkle in his eye, his survival and prosperity beyond the #MeToo moment evidence of the enduring phenomenon of boys being boys. Jay Richardson

Jake Baker: The Gentle Men’s Club ★ ★ ★ ★

Hoots @ The Apex (Venue 108) until 31 August

If the manosphere is making you feel anxious and pessimistic, Jake Baker’s wonderful show, The Gentle Men’s Club, might just be the balm you need.

Declaring that someone described him as looking like a substitute English teacher who’s been drafted in to cover a PE class, he’s a reassuringly gentle, friendly presence who’s got some excellent points to make about contemporary masculinity. And a barrel-load of jokes.

Almost certainly the only comedian incorporating We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Neil Strauss’s pick-up bible The Game and what looks like a Ladybird book of animal facts into his act this month, he’s put together an elegantly constructed argument against the need for alpha males.

As well as sharing stories about a former flatmate – an American Christian fundamentalist athlete – to symbolise much of what is wrong with the way some men see their roles, he drops in a few interesting animal facts that challenge long-held perceptions.

He mentions, for example, how the concept of the “alpha wolf” (so beloved of Elon Musk and his cohort) is flawed because studies on these animals’ group behaviours were based on those in captivity; their social structures are very different in the wild.

Sam Altman inspires some fun material too: the boss of Open AI has said he doesn’t read books, preferring instead to consume AI summaries. Baker plays a little game with the audience that proves – if proof indeed were needed – how wrong-headed this approach is.

Baker, with a healthy dollop of self-deprecation, speaks about what it’s like having a girlfriend who earns way more than he does, as well as touching upon the kind of emotions men are allowed to express and why it makes sense to have more women in decision-making roles.

Not only is he adept at crafting and delivering beautiful jokes, but each satisfying punchline is topped with an additional cherry that extends the laughs. The Gentle Men’s Club would work perfectly in a BBC Radio 4 comedy slot, and it certainly deserves a bigger audience. Ashley Davies

Hannah Byczkowski: Killer ★ ★ ★

Gilded Balloon Teviot (Venue 14) until 30 August

Despite winning The Traitors' inaugural series, Hannah Byczkowski doesn't mention the hit reality show in her forthright Fringe debut, its legacy only apparent in her fascination with true crime. And she doesn't need to because she has plenty of autobiographical material to draw from and an upfront personality that doesn't require a microphone, let alone the reflected fame of her recent celebrity. As a long-time care worker, she's been death-adjacent, prompting her to amusing, unsentimental observations on mortality.

There's also an ill-conceived fantasy about her best friend's supposed offing that's both too casual and too gratuitously dark. A rare bum note, it feels as if it was conceived as on theme but detracts from the greater authenticity suggested elsewhere in the hour. Byczkowski is at her best when she's relatable, musing on the potentially murky circumstances of her own death and, more prosaically, just being a prematurely grumpy, 36-year-old hypochondriac, with an awful lot of of gripes.

Enjoyably dismissive of her “dickhead”, attention-seeking grandmother and rarely less than ribald, the effusive comic can be crude. But she can also drolly find the humanity in Dr Harold Shipman, after a fashion. Her delivery trumps her writing just now. Yet she's a force-of-nature, so that's plenty to contend with. Jay Richardson

READ MORE: Edinburgh Festivals Diary: Clowns with cats and diva dogs

Mario Adrion: Live a Little ★ ★ ★

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 30 August

If there was any doubt that the fashion industry has a dark underbelly then former model Mario Adrion (now a YouTube star with millions of followers) is here to shine a light on the dubious practices and personalities that stalk its outwardly-glamorous catwalks and photoshoots.

In his debut Fringe show the easy-on-the-eye performer takes us from a childhood raised by an emotionally-distant mother in a small town in Germany’s Black Forest, to a global tour of his modelling career where insecurity and transactional sex loom large, albeit covered by a sheen of self-aggrandising humour.

Punctuated by “palate-cleansing Hitler jokes”, there are few boundaries he won’t cross for a joke, but the many laughs are soon replaced by a stunned silence as he describes a life-changing experience that took place after he was lured back to a fashion maven’s home following an assignment in China.

Such is the anything-goes nature of the first half there’s the expectation of a punchline that never arrives, leaving the remainder of the performance tonally awkward as Adrion’s larger-than-life stage persona morphs into a person who is all too real. It’s a transition that doesn’t quite work, no matter how emotive, well-performed and fascinating the story is overall. David Hepburn

Leo Hincks: Emotional Cowboy ★ ★

Gilded Balloon Teviot (Venue 14) until 30 August

Leo Hincks has a problem, in that he's not the only young, gay, posh, histrionic Leo in British comedy, with Leo Reich having already parlayed his smash 2022 Fringe debut into television projects on both sides of the Atlantic.

Featuring his better-known namesake paying him a distinctly backhanded compliment in voiceover is clever. And Hincks' festival bow has lots of theatrical angst and gnashing of teeth. Yet it never rises from simulated breakdown to something more substantial or funny. At times, the sheer excess of his self-regard threatens to, but it's a long, inconsequential and baffling hour. Jay Richardson

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