Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams
Underbelly
Tim Minchin: Ready For This?
Pleasance
Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress Underbelly
Russell Kane: Gaping Flaws
Pleasance
Rhod Gilbert and the Award-Winning Mince Pie
Pleasance
One of the favourite debates in Fringe comedy is whether the major award of the festival, the if.comedy (Perrier as was) offers a level playing field. Is it fair, for example, to judge the skills of stand-up comedy, which demands an ability to think on your feet and riff off the audience, as exemplified so brilliantly by the likes of Mark Watson or Jason Byrne, with more closely scripted material such as sketch shows, character acts or musical numbers?
If there was a separate award for musical comedy, it would come down to a Melbourne derby between the magnificent Tim Minchin and newcomer Sammy J. The Antipodeans seem to be leading the field at the moment (Flight of the Conchords, with a sleeper Fringe hit only a few years ago, are now cult stars on US television), and Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams was the hit of this year's Melbourne Comedy Festival. A kind of Avenue Q-style adult Muppet Show (the opening number, 'Fuck You, Disney' makes clear that anyone who brought their children was badly mistaken), the story follows Sammy J through a magic portal to an enchanted forest where he befriends a blue creature, beds a girl and starts an ill-informed revolution, watched by depressive birds and cynical trees, all ably operated by puppeteer Heath McIvor. The songs are a delight and the story nicely constructed, with some unexpected moments that will ambush you with laughter. If you're looking for something different, this is one of the funniest and most original shows I've seen this year.
Tim Minchin won the newcomer award with his first Fringe show in 2005, and his act has grown stronger year on year. The rock heir to Tom Lehrer, Minchin is a consummate wordsmith as well as a virtuoso musician (he has a degree in English and Theatre and a diploma in contemporary music), and this year he tackles familiar subjects in more experimental forms. Fundamentalist Christians, Aussie hippies and the exploitation of dancing bears are all addressed in songs and beat poems, as well as a scathing riposte to the Guardian critic who slammed his first show. It would almost be worth giving Minchin a kicking in print to be thus immortalised, but unfortunately it's impossible not to say that, for sheer showmanship and electric talent, this is the best-value-for-money show in Edinburgh.
The mighty Joan Rivers is also genre-bending this year, returning with a show that is billed as theatre but is really a series of stand-up routines framed by a rather uninspired sitcom setting. 'This is theatre!' she asserts grandly, adding, 'So there will be no plastic surgery jokes,' before embarking on a whole slew of them. In fact, the high camp of this autobiographical play, set backstage on Oscar night and directed by Sean Foley, rather over-eggs these fascinating and often poignant monologues looking back over a career that has almost ended in disaster several times. Not for nothing is the show's theme tune Elton John's 'The Bitch is Back'; whatever you think of Rivers, she is a tough woman and has triumphed over the tragedy of her husband's suicide and the prejudices of sexism and ageism. There are some splendidly sharp lines to offset more heavy-handed jokes - it was enough to mention the achievement of being dry at her age, she didn't need to throw an adult nappy into the audience - but for all its deliberate hamminess, this is a gloriously entertaining and surprisingly moving show.
By contrast, two of the strongest stand-up acts this year, both hotly tipped for award nominations, embody our very British preoccupation with misery and self-deprecation. In Gaping Flaws, Russell Kane considers his recent failure with American audiences and concludes that it's because Americans can't sympathise with self-loathing. This paves the way for a series of high-octane reminiscences on his own working-class family, his bigoted father's inability to express pride in his son, and his nan's fondness for booze and the C-word. There's enough bawdiness in his relentless, energetic material to please the less discerning punter, but it's underpinned by subtly serious points, and to prove his crossover appeal he even throws in an anecdote about Kazuo Ishiguro.
But the revelation of this Fringe has been the coming of age of Rhod Gilbert. In his fourth solo show he's abandoned the surreal whimsy of life in the fictional Welsh town of Llanbobl that furnished most of his previous material, and attempted to root himself in the real world. The result is a beautifully crafted and masterfully controlled explosion of rage, ostensibly against the fake concern of customer-service idiom, but embracing the Taliban, his flagging libido, the bedding department of Debenhams and culminating in a showdown at Knutsford service station when he was confronted with the pie of the title. Anyone who has ever felt impotent in the face of bureaucratic stupidity - and in Britain that probably includes most of us - will rejoice in this show.
