Edinburgh Fringe Comedy reviews: Joe Tracini | Jessie Nixon | Kieran Hodgson | Molly McGuinness + more

Joe Tracini: Ten Things I Hate About Me

Underbelly, Bristo Square (Venue 302)

★★★★☆

I'm old enough to recall being at a BBC recording that Joe Tracini mentions in this affectingly candid, exhaustive exposure of his troubled mind and soul. On the cusp of a big break that never materialised, as his father Joe Pasquale’s once did, he paid too great a homage to the material of stand-up Michael Redmond. Yet little did I know at the time that Tracini was a serious drug addict with complex psychological issues.

In active development for half a decade, the former Hollyoaks actor and viral lockdown dancing sensation's struggle to perform Ten Things I Hate About Me has already featured in a Bafta-nominated Channel 4 documentary exploring the debilitating effects of his Borderline Personality Disorder, and his efforts to communicate them. Featuring suicidal impulses, successive stints in rehab, a heart attack and some disturbing recurrent behaviour, on paper it's not for the potentially triggered.

And yet this is as light-hearted a lecture as the above could conceivably be. Blending confessional, ukulele tunes and even the accursed magic tricks that blighted Tracini's adolescence as a painfully precocious nepo baby, the barest mention of his family here is not an encouraging sign. For both his and his audience's benefit, he's carefully structured the show as a PowerPoint presentation of his Ten Things. And he trails the contents at the top of the hour, the discipline and framework freeing him to be a sprightly, unencumbered guide to his disordered brain.

Virtually all the humour emanates from bleak places. But Tracini doesn't flinch from sharing his lowest ebbs or making himself seem unattractive, sharing a previously unbroadcast, off-colour remark that he made about the passing of the Queen in an interview. There's some redemption in the meet-cute of finding his girlfriend. And he earns his ovation for more than just getting through the performance, having elicited consistent laughs while educating.

JAY RICHARDSON

until 24 August

READ MORE: The Best Edinburgh Fringe Comedy 2025: Every show with a four or five star review from The Scotsman so far

Jessie Nixon: Don’t Make Me Regret This

Assembly George Square (Venue 8)

★★★☆☆

Still in her twenties, Jessie Nixon has a way of talking which is utterly eccentric but also delightfully representative of her generation. She squeaks, she coos, she reads poetry from an embossed book. Her script, you suspect, may be partly written in emojis.

Her subject is sex, the male gaze and how, as a large girl commonly described as ‘striking’ she navigates the issues of body image, shame and general horniness. There’s a lot of stuff about internet dating, swiping left and right, and being ready to ‘me too’ unattractive suitors on a whim.

Jessie is fascinated by the power dynamics of dating and attractiveness, and she’s refreshingly frank about her own desires. The poetry is laugh-out-loud funny, peppered with Jessie’s bizarrely affected pronunciation of certain words and strange verbal shorthand which may, or may not, be peculiar to her. Bristol born, she also swears creatively (even swearing mid-word, which takes some doing.)

There’s an undercurrent of feeling dispossessed – of being priced out of the grown-up world – which runs through all her observations. She’s child-like, despite all the talk of sex, and I thoroughly enjoy the abundant silliness of her debut hour.

CLAIRE SMITH

until 24 August

Kieran Hodgson: Voice of America

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33)

★★★☆☆

In delivering this interesting new show about his evolving personal, political and professional relationship with America, Kieran Hodgson goes all in with his presentation. In Springsteenesque denim, he bounds into a hyped-up room that feels like a US political party event, then paces the stage in the manner of a New York stand-up in front of a giant Stars & Stripes.

It’s a typically clever hour from this thoughtful and talented British comic and actor, with tales of his youthful perception of the super-power – gleaned mostly from popular culture – and how an attempted Spring Break trip didn’t go to plan.

As well as talking about landing a small part in superhero movie The Flash, he illustrates the ways in which his feelings about the US shifted. As his understanding of its complexities deepened, he learnt what his father really meant by “American rubbish”, realising that the supreme goal is the retention of power, regardless of which ostensibly decent figure is in the White House.

A masterful voice artist, he does some great impressions of past presidents, and, despite making a show of not wanting to do the incumbent, he does allow himself a few lines of Trumpspeak – much to the delight of the audience. Hodgson is, however, at his best when being his sweetly bookish self.

ASHLEY DAVIES

until 24 August

Molly McGuinness: Slob

Monkey Barrel Comedy (Cabaret Voltaire) (Venue 338)

★★★☆☆

Ultimately getting her happy ending and ride into the sunset, Molly McGuinness has had a tough road getting to Edinburgh for her Fringe debut. The Salford-born stand-up paints a grimly entertaining picture of her soul-destroying employment, dating history and friend group position as “the funny one”, aka the liability, and recounts it with ironic good humour. As an amiable and seemingly fairly passive participant in her own life, the men she draws to her tend to be of a certain vintage and somewhat strapped in their economic instances, while her hospitality jobs were characterised by their pointlessness or weirdly exploitative nature.

Opening by trying to coerce the crowd into sampling a middle-class buffet spread she's laid on, starkly contrasting the bizarre slop she's been treated to at northern funerals, she's a winning anecdotalist, softening the edges of her autobiography with absurdist details. And if a sense of drift accompanies her tales of getting drunk and stumbling into a television audition, or a frustrated date that saw her travel doomed from Manchester to London, it's likely because McGuiness knows that she has a trump twist in her back pocket, which she introduces towards the end. The medical emergency was the rottenest luck but it brings upbeat recovery.

JAY RICHARDSON

until 24 August

Ismael Loutfi: Heavenly Baba

Studio Five at Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17)

★★★☆☆

Ismael Loutfi tells a beautifully nuanced story about growing up Muslim in Florida, which takes some genuinely unexpected twists and turns. His dad was a fundamentalist Muslim, who didn’t believe in evolution and drove around town in a bashed-up car decorated with homespun Islamic and political slogans.

Photos of the vehicle take centre stage in the slides which illustrate the show. And it’s easy to see why young Loutfi, after an early period of ardent religiosity, was mortified by his father’s mode of transport.

Loutfi tells a familiar story of finding his individuality through comedy, but he also recognises how he once exploited his background to get a laugh from redneck crowds.

He’s smarter than that now. And he’s built his Edinburgh debut around his fascinating quest to find out what led his Dad to create such a spectacle of himself.

Loutfi’s journey of self-discovery is deeply touching and engagingly told. And it turns out his father was a far more complex character than he ever imagined.

It’s an extraordinary story, but one in which Loutfi finds a way to fully embrace his culture, his love of comedy and his deeply bizarre but very loveable father.

CLAIRE SMITH

until 24 August

Only Grans

The Street (Venue 239)

★★☆☆☆

Very little offends me. This almost gerontophobic show did. Droopy (fake) old lady breasts are jiggled, geriatric attempts at twerking and slutty dancing are hindered by creaky joints and the need for a sit down, and the whole show is offered in a whistley 'ill-fitting-dentures' voice. Red top headlines about drag priests and killer lesbians outrage her, 'socialist' media is misunderstood, Tinder connection is attempted on a dial-up phone and oh how we laugh when she thinks her online MILF is a man. Natalie Renwick is a talented performer, but a few grey lines drawn round your mouth are nothing more than ageist blackface ... and we have got past that.

KATE COPSTICK

until 15 August

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