Edinburgh Fringe comedy reviews: Sophia Wren: Princess Melancholy | Holly Spillar: Tall Child | Liam Tulley: Baldilocks | Joke Thieves | Grace Helbig; Let Me Get This Off My Chest | A Hundred Per Cent No Anxiety Comedy Show – Peter Bazely

COMEDY

Sophia Wren: Princess Melancholy ★★★★

Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower (Venue 140) until 24 August

Returning to the Fringe outwardly more robust than when she was last here, Sophia Wren offers a theatrically framed hour of lyrically and often hilariously filthy stand-up, delivered like an unstoppable stream of consciousness. With the persona of a cocktail party princess determined to have their say, despite the last drink having been poured and the gathering breaking up, the Irish comedian knows her mind and is not one to brook argument. Except that she's routinely visited by her oppressive inner thoughts, a diabolic red light flooding the room as her voice-over persecutes her with her most pressing insecurities, assuming the audience's contempt for her despite evidence to the contrary. Although a fairly recognisable and even clichéd stage device, the effect is still jarring, representing a marked contrast to Wren's jaded but otherwise wry, bawdy garrulousness.

Despite being forthcoming about fellatio, heavy drinking and cosmetic enhancements, proffering her own experience as representative of modern Ireland, Wren is considerably skimpier on autobiographical detail, effusively open and yet still guarded. Offering a point-by-point analysis of the attractiveness of the Emerald Isle's leading actors, with conclusions on their ride-worthiness, she's got a keen eye for a casual hook-up and virtually no interest in revisiting past relationships. We belatedly discover that she's a mother but almost nothing else about her daughter, with the comic's inner self hammering her as a bad parent. She's breezily satirical about Ireland's evolution from the dysfunctional Catholicism of her 23-child grandmother's time, The Troubles and the historical tendency to dismiss women with catch-all “hysteria” labelling. She's also got really funny quips about Conor McGregor, the rise of the Far Right and mindfulness techniques, with her external disassembling only finally subsiding to straightforwardly confess her agitated mental state. Disclosing her past issues and the abuse she's endured, it's a not unexpected kicker to an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable hour.

JAY RICHARDSON

COMEDY

Holly Spillar: Tall Child ★★★★

Underbelly, Bristo Square (Venue 302) until 24 August

Holly Spillar protects herself and entices the listener with her disclaimer that Tall Child is a work of fiction, with any resemblance to real individuals entirely in the spectator's mind. The singular musical comic arrived in London with dreams of making it in the arts. But as a working-class performer, she took a “low pay, high stakes” role facilitating the artistic inclinations of a privileged toddler. Just who the euphemistically refereed to “Future Landlord” and their parents are is kept shrouded in mystery. Yet their mega-wealth is attested to by the phalanx of armed bodyguards who stir if Spillar oversteps her closeness to the kid.

The gilded cage existence of her former charge and that of her own upbringing are starkly contrasted, with the proto-comic's preternatural talent and early Messiah Complex informed by undiagnosed neurodiversity. Yet the rebellious Spillar just isn't cut out for the established production line of frustrated arts graduates-turned-arts teachers. With some of the wide-eyed, ethereal glamour and spookiness of Kate Bush, she sings ironically, echoing over her own looped beats, the chippy, do-it-yourself attitude of one struggling to establish themselves in their chosen field. As a dark, weirdly tall child of poverty and limited horizons, she was never destined to play Cosette in Les Misérables, with the grimy street urchin being the preserve of posh little blond girls. We're all in the gutter, wallowing in our own faeces she tunefully wails. Yet some, like Future Landlord, will be able to literally sell theirs' at a ridiculous price, even their nappy spilled daubing indulged.

As densely and intricately layered as this show is, the tunes woven through with controlled elegance, Spillar's anger and resentment blaze in her eyes and lyrics. Still, she retains an abiding compassion for the child at the heart of the story. Rarely less than archly witty and appealingly odd, at times she's impassioned and hilarious.

JAY RICHARDSON

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

COMEDY

Liam Tulley: Baldilocks ★★★

Just the Tonic at The Mash House (Venue 288) until 24 August

Deadpan and downbeat, Liam Tulley nevertheless consistently amuses with his bleak perspective and default misanthropy. Impassively, he despairs at the jobs he's had, his myriad health conditions and negotiating online dating as a bald man. A former care worker, who, fortunately, made a big mistake without consequences, but also grew accustomed to death, Tulley is not someone who radiates joie de vivre. Anxiety has led to a series of other, comically debilitating, self-perpetuating conditions for him that he sadly relates in depth, his knackered body conspiring against him and affording him a weary fatalism. When he tells you about signing up to dating apps, you already know he's a lamb to the slaughter of judgement. And so it proves, his feelings blithely crushed by human insensitivity and the brutal, Darwinian analysis of the algorithms. His material about intimate medical examinations never strays too far from the humiliating template laid down by countless middle-aged, male comics. Yet when he unexpectedly, finally, has some romantic success, snatching a score draw from defeat, he's on a more equal footing with his partner. And the relatable details of nature finding a way and a memorable, recurring visual image ensure that this solid debut ends surprisingly uplifting.

JAY RICHARDSON

COMEDY

Joke Thieves ★★★

Laughing Horse @ the Three Sisters (Venue 272) until 24 August

This is another terrific comedy format from the mind of Wil Mars. Possibly most entertaining of all for serious comedy buffs and other comedians, but fun for all if cast correctly. It would be terrific on TV. The premise is that four comics do a very short set. Someone in the audience pairs them up and then those pairs swap sets and do each other's material. There are a dozen ways in which this is funny. Turns out Stephen Carlin's deadpan material is not really doable by anyone other than Stephen Carlin (and amiable Canadian Dylan Rhymer draws the short straw there), but Ollie Horne and Adam Green – although, I feel, not exactly sticking to the script - get big laughs out of each other's writing, frequently by adding ridicule and targetted sarcasm into an already funny script. It is also fascinating watching Carlin try to 'jolly up' to deliver Rhymer's gentle five minutes – heart shaped pizza is not Carlin's usual hunting ground. This is clever comedy jeopardy. And always a different cast, so the chances of a pairing made in heaven or hell is always different.

KATE COPSTICK

READ MORE: My Festival – Hal Cruttenden: 'I should probably thank my wife for leaving me'

COMEDY

Grace Helbig; Let Me Get This Off My Chest ★★★

Pleasance Dome (Venue 23) until 24 August

Grace Helbig has been a content creator for 17 years. Just let that sink in. She was one of the first generation of internet idiots, putting her life online in bite sized bits. Making money from a new world that emerged just as she was coming of age.

It means she’s amazingly well placed to understand the effect of the addictive power of the algorithm, the dopamine chasing and the brain changing effect of addictive technology. But this is her cancer story, or to put it into her words her ‘white woman healing journey’.

Grace is relatively new to stand up but she’s been an entertainer for a long time and she’s full of verbal tics, physical jerks and slogans, which flash up on the screen behind her. Like a lot of Americans at the Fringe she has a slightly over-rehearsed, over-scripted style of comedy. She has a speedy delivery, with a touch of Megan Mulvaney. But Helbig is absolutely fluent in the quickfire humour of the perpetually online. The emotional impact of her cancer gets a bit lost in the whizz bang of the telling but she’s a fascinating living embodiment of the culture she helped to create.

CLAIRE SMITH

COMEDY

A Hundred Per Cent No Anxiety Comedy Show – Peter Bazely ★★

Upstairs @ Laughing Horse (Venue 151) until 24 August

It is quite possible Peter Bazely is just having a bad day. For the hour of his show (which he repeatedly promises “we will just smash through”), so am I. Everything is read from a notebook and even if this is meant to be anti-comedy, it doesn't really work. Be aware there is quite a lot of audience participation and that much mention is made of Peter's various psychological problems in his performance. The show purports to be 100% No Anxiety, but I found myself getting quite tense. Irritation does that to me.

KATE COPSTICK

Make sure you keep up to date with Arts and Culture news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here.