Monkey Barrel Comedy

A slightly hubristic name to give your show at the world’s biggest comedy festival, and one imagines there’s a fair degree of irony in its deployment. But Daran ‘Jonno’ Johnson has earned the name as he finally makes his solo Fringe debut 16 years after his sublimely silly, gloriously high concept sketch troupe Sheeps make theirs. He’s also riding high as head writer for SNL UK, whose somewhat unexpected success this year has boosted a host of its stars and should hopefully do the same for its behind the scenes talent. We’re promised ‘a joyful, gag-heavy hour packed with whimsical, odd tangents and nonsensical comedy’.

Paddy Young probably went into SNL UK the more obscure one out of him and his younger Weekend Update co-star Ania Magliano. But he’d certainly been making waves before that, with a furious post-pandemic workrate that saw him bring up a new Fringe show every year since 2021, including 2023’s Best Comedy Newcomer nominated Hungry, Horny, Scared. Now is his moment to really grab the spotlight with the latest outing for the Scarborough stand-up’s imaginative, hyperactive observational comedy.

A lot has happened to Ania Magliano since she last took a new show to the Fringe: last year she starred in Taskmaster, and this year she’s been one of the brightest stars of SNL UK. Will it have boosted her profile at the Fringe? Probably! She’s playing her biggest venue to date at this year’s edition, albeit she still seems wedded to a nice mid afternoon slot. Peach Fuzz is not a high concept show but more of the youthful stand-up’s signature gossipy observations and ironic send up of Gen-Z narcisissim. In other words, expect a treat.

The relative downgrade in the wellbeing of Western civilzation is liable to be bad for Nish Kumar’s mental health – the political comic gives the impression of taking every one of Trump’s depravities personally – but good for his audience: his mill is overflowing with grist. Expect darkly amusing dissection of the news, delivered by a man who gives every impression of being on the cusp of either a panic attack or combustuing from fury or possibly both. These Edinburgh dates are billed as work-in-progress, but given he launches straight into a national tour in September expect it to be slick as it’s ever going to be come the end of this run.

This is weird: Frankie Monroe – the amoral pub landlord sociopath alter ego to comic Joe Kent-Walters – will do a single performance of his Show for Babies at this year’s Fringe. What will it involve? Absolutely no idea whatsoever: the description states: ‘it’s not a Kids show. It’s for Babies. If any kids come they will have to pretend they are a baby or maybe hide so Frankie cannot see them’. That is all we know about it but Kent-Waters has been the toast of the last two Edinburghs and this looks to be a proper ‘only at the Fringe’ one-off.