Dissecting the Fringe: Edinburgh Diary

Saturday 23^rd

Until last Saturday I had never seen Late Night Gimp Fight. This might seem like something of an oversight on my part given their prominence at the Fringe and in London over the past few years, but everything I had read and heard about the group had suggested that they were not what I was interested in, comically speaking. Sitting through their greatest hits in a raucous Pleasance Beyond confirmed this suspicion: rarely have I felt more out of place in an audience, or felt that a show was aimed at people other (i.e., younger) than myself. This isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it. The troupe are relentlessly professional and dispatch their sketches with ruthless aplomb. A couple of the presentational ideas (sock puppets made using the legs of the performers, and a silent piece where all the audience can see are translucent gloves and other accoutrments) were superbly executed, and one of their songs was wittier than any ditty about bestiality has a right to be.

Nevertheless, there’s arguably less to LNGF than meets the eye. The point isn’t that too often they fall below the level of their best ideas – after all, this is true of almost any sketch troupe. Rather, what was surprising to me was how unchallenging the show is, in the sense of how closely it conformed to its audience’s expectations. Unlike the traditional late-night Fringe gig, with drink-fuelled heckles and put-downs and a genuine battle of wills (if not wits) between audience and performer, this was entirely slick and controlled from the word go. In fact, it put me in mind of a children’s show, albeit one marketed at children who found references to masturbation and paedophilia hilarious.[i] The edgy humour which is the group’s selling point was delivered in spades, but a show where the audience expects shocking material and is there precisely to see it is one whose edge is automatically blunted.

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[i] Not to mention, somewhat more dismayingly, a number of sketches where the punchline involved nonconsesual sex.

Dissecting the Fringe: Edinburgh Diary

Thursday 21^st- Friday 22^nd

That hardy perennial, the one-liner comic, is well represented at this year’s Fringe. A couple of different acts I saw illustrated the variety of approaches available to the most stripped-down form of stand-up. In particular, they each found different ways of dealing with what is often a characteristic feature of one-liner comedy: the comedian, since they are giving us the joke and waiting for us to get it, assumes a high-status role, remote from the cares and worries of the audience members they are deigning to guide towards enjoyment.

Mark Simmons wears the de facto uniform of recent one-liner comics, a suit, but it’s rumpled and not particularly intimidating, much like the man himself.[i] He does tell us that if we don’t get a joke we should raise a hand and he can explain it, which sounds very high-status but in practice undercuts his role. He’s also a naturally warm performer: ‘warm’ can mean a number of different things depending on the kind of show in question, but in this case it means he giggles endearingly at his own jokes. In other circumstances, giggling indicates a nervousness which can ruin a show, but Simmons is a fluent enough performer that the audience never worries about his ability.

Sean Nolan takes the theme of non-dominant performer even further. He wears a t-shirt and jeans and reads most of his jokes from a notebook (many of which, interestingly, are the same as when he performed them here last year without visual aid):

The vocal delivery is very deadpan, which is a classic trope of one-liner comedy, but lightened by a shy grin after each one. In some cases this is a necessity, given that some of his material is edgier than anything in Simmon’s set. Nolan is obviously influenced by Demetri Martin in how he constructs his jokes,[ii] but some of the jokes themselves would sound more appropriate coming from Frankie Boyle or Jimmy Carr. Nevertheless, the impression remains one of a cheeky young ‘un nudging at the boundaries of what we will accept, rather than an alpha figure striding confidently over the line.

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[i] He also changes his clothes as the show progresses, which is intriguing and only slightly spoiled by the rather weak punch-line to which it leads.

[ii] And in the drawings he presents at the end of his set, which were the most consistently funny element of the show.