Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2015: comedy reviews

Elf Lyons is a clown comic who makes weird concept shows like her last one, Horses, which involved her playing the role of multiple horses, several of whom die. A singular talent, she’s certainly on the popular end of the esoteric but she also always seemed destined to be the definition of a cult artist.  Might something as humdrum as a breakup change that? Well maybe, although it’s all done in a very Elf Lyons-ish way. For at least the first 10 minutes there is no way you’d even begin to suspect that’s what was up, as Lyons – in an elaborate cocktail dress with enormous sleeves that keep slipping off distractingly – wanders in on barefoot tippy toes (as if she were wearing high heels) and launches into a breathy, faux femme-fatale film-noir accent as she takes a series of phone calls from ‘her husband’ (on bananas). ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ she asks. Dry ice pours out of her dress. Eventually she gets an audience member up to read a script, which she lip syncs to as he reads it. The script divulges that last year, she broke up with her fiancé just a couple of months before her wedding, and as the show wears on it becomes clear that she was utterly devastated by this.   Woman on the Edge is a mass of dissociations: the ’40s screen-siren character is an abstract avatar of Lyons’ grief and the marriage that never was, which is for the most part only addressed via the script read by the audience member and by recordings (also lip synced to) of friends detailing what a mess...

The flagship venue of legendary Scottish comedy promoter Tommy Sheppard (who also counts the Glasgow, Fife and Falkirk comedy festivals, the Assembly Rooms Fringe venue and two other Stand branches, in Glasgow and Newcastle, among his interests), The Stand Edinburgh is quite simply the king of comedy venues in Scotland’s capital. Its poky wee stage (no bigger than your average Travelodge shower stall) has been graced by the great and good of UK and international comedy – stories still abound of that time Johnny Vegas hijacked an industrial floor buffer for his act, while alt.comedy stars Stewart Lee, Bridget Christie, Simon Munnery and Daniel Kitson all still make regular sojourns here. Local heroes visit frequently as well – Kevin Bridges and Frankie Boyle drop by whenever they have new material to workshop, be it at purpose-booked engagements or as surprise guests at the weekly Red Raw new talent night (where old hands polish new jokes as complete novices step up for the first time). What impresses about The Stand is how, having ticked all the boxes that make it a great live comedy venue, it’s gone on to be a superlative bar as well. The beers on tap include the usual mainstream suspects (Heineken, Fosters), but also feature the locally made (and cherished) Three Hop lager. The food – nachos, burgers and other pub grub favourites – is of a higher standard than that at many nearby joints where the menu is a main feature rather than an optional extra. And the atmosphere –...