Fringe comedy reviews: Jenny Gorelick | Ed Night | Celine Kuklowsky | Carl Carzana | Rob Preston

Jenny Gorelick: SORRY ★★★★

Monkey Barrel Comedy (Niddry Street) (The Studio) (Venue 80) until 30 August

Despite the global explosion in apps and generational shift in romantic expectations they've entailed, American dating culture still feels so much more layered, if not trickier to negotiate than here in the UK.

Fortunately, the vivacious Jenny Gorelick is an accomplished guide to the perils and pitfalls of this contemporary phenomenon in this breezily whip-smart Fringe debut musing on gender and transgression, specifically why women find it easier to say sorry than men.

The New Yorker literally wrote the book on red flags in the male psyche. And one hook-up, and the tattoo it revealed, gave Gorelick both her show's inspiration and a level of New York Times-level background checking that she'd hope for any woman.

As she unapologetically pursues a lifestyle of meeting affluent men with boats and shares the war stories from these encounters, SORRY is a completely partial, wickedly indiscreet series of vignettes about confused, unsuitable guys. But by virtue of biology, women can't afford to be as feckless. And gradually Gorelick makes some honest admissions about her long-term future and digs into the knotty, economic considerations that she's grappling with too.

Broadening her purview out to the legal ramifications of what a “boyfriend” amounts to, highlighting social changes since her grandparents' relationship, Gorelick's girlish energy is offset by a willingness to inflect her gags with recourse to the worst of humanity, entertainingly wielding a sledgehammer to crack some male nuts. High status, assured in her desirability, she nevertheless permits occasional vulnerability to permeate, acknowledging her true age and her weakness for the sub-culture of romantasy novels.

For the most part though, she's just devastatingly funny, a clinical, calculated writer packaged in a flirty, perkily petite stage presence, delivering punchy observations on gender relations with seductive skill. Jay Richardson

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Ed Night: We’ll Be Alright, Darling ★★★★★

Monkey Barrel (Venue 515) until 30 August

Ed Night cuts a sorry figure this month – from a distance, anyway. Sporting a moon boot and having to use a crutch due to a broken foot and sprained ankle brings the inaccessibility of the Old Town into sharp focus. Bouts of torrential rain don’t help either.

On stage, though, it’s a different story. Night is clear-eyed and energetic, having created yet another stand-up masterpiece, and he’s damned if he’ll follow doctors’ orders to do it sitting down.

Still only 30, he expresses both the yearning nostalgia of an older man (oh, whither the optimistic thrill-seekings of yesteryear?) and the hopeless frustration of a millennial in the arts who feels he will never have the material trappings enjoyed by his parents’ generation. You bet he’s got a gorgeous simile for the unattainable grandeur of a suburban semi.

Darkness runs through his comedy like shiny black streaks in marble. Jokes – particularly one relating to “Dr Theatre” – about his chronic mental health problems are as elegantly written and expressed as they are funny, and he’s got a fresh angle on the idea that men don’t talk enough about their feelings.

Some of his inspiration comes from the act of waiting, whether that’s a full day in the hospital or nine months in somewhere infinitely more comfortable, and hearing him indulge in surreal flights of fancy is a pleasure.

Night’s poetic observations – from the detail of a window to the funny but demeaning Australian nickname for the ibis, symbol of the Egyptian god of writing, wisdom and magic – are treats from a literary mind. And if someone challenged him to secrete Moby Dick references throughout the show, he’s nailed that too. There’s plenty of enjoyable silliness here, with rich segues on gravy boats and a bit of in-command playfulness with the audience.

What Ed Night has done this year is the definition of art. It expresses so much about what it means to be a particular kind of man during a particular period in history. I’ve said this before about his work, but, as is the case with some of the finest novels, you’ll feel you need to go back again to relive it, savour it and ensure you haven’t missed a drop. Ashley Davies

Celine Kuklowsky: Bed Boy ★★★

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose (Venue 24) until 31 August

There are two striking things about Celine Kuklowsky right off the bat. One is their similarity to Tig Notaro, at least physically and in their wry US tones to an untrained British ear, though French-American Kuklowsky is more smilingly upbeat than their more famous comic doppelganger. The other is that they're performing their hour from bed.

As it transpires, the recent London arrival is a staunch liberal and has an employment record of activism and communal organisation in the socialist cause. But this is no peaceful protest sleep-in. Rather, Kuklowsky offers a more personal denunciation of the US healthcare system, gradually opening up about their reasons for relocating to Europe once again. Top amongst these is love and they self-mockingly acknowledge their “sugar baby” status, as the lower earning, older half in their romantic partnership.

Born to cool, arty parents, Kuklowsky has struggled to rebel. And in this sprawling Fringe debut, arguably messier than their bedsheets, they relate the belated discovery of their sexuality, familial expectations imposed upon them and an abiding love of karaoke.

Despite some explicit denunciation of conservatism, Kuklowsky is nevertheless a chucklingly amiable storyteller with a lack of excessive self-pity for their debilitating illness. Jay Richardson

READ MORE: Comedian Stephen Gordon: The Fringe was built on risk. Comedy should be allowed to fail again.

Carl Carzana THE Comedian Creative Genius ★★★

Laughing Horse @ City Cafe (Venue 85) until 30 August

A comic and illustrator with puckish inventiveness and skittish joy in a range of comic styles, in his cramped venue, Carl Carzana is determinedly alternative. But in his oversized, prematurely ageing him red jacket, there's an awful lot of the old-fashioned variety act in him too.

Stringing together song pastiches, visual puns, sketch caricaturing, flip charts of “nearly phrases”, heavily fictionalised autobiography and even puppetry, his Harry Hill and Vic and Bob influences are evident. Yet he's distinctive enough, his incessant non-sequiturs amusing rather than frustrating.

Put simply, if a maddening reworking of the Only Fools and Horses theme tune to plug one specific household item isn't for you, then perhaps you'll get something out of his intellectual property abusing soft toys.

Appreciating a rather lively crowd on the day I caught him, he gave as good as he got and forged a Stockholm Syndrome-like spirit of togetherness in his more out there endeavours. Some of this show flummoxes, some of it bombs. But it's all offered with generosity of spirit and the stubborn verve of a youngish man who sees little need to compromise. Jay Richardson

Rob Preston: Amazing Global Solutions ★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 30 August

Manosphere casualties, Rob Preston's gallery of insecure, compromised men offer an amusing cautionary tale in this assured Fringe debut.

Chief amongst them is Bobby Prezinsky, an ingratiating pub quiz host with designs above his station, hoping to leverage his nervy authority into a more conventional showbusiness career. With his thirsty desperation, he's a pitiful creation. But his leftfield, confounding questions make you genuinely want to try his quiz, even after he begins proposing youth re-education programmes and slides into an Orwellian reimagining that makes him seem much less harmless.

That's as nothing though compared to Paul, a conspiracy theorist who sees secret signs all over the High Street, his stream of consciousness babble erupting into frustrated attempts at violence. Next to him, Jacques de Klerk, a South African tech bro of vague, indeterminate product, is merely a hapless chancer, with Preston raising his slapstick physicality to match the ridiculous accent.

One slur against fellow Eastern Europeans notwithstanding, a Slovenian barber is equally daft, perpetually distracted by his need to dance. And a well-connected posh kid, Jason, in denial about his privilege, hiding his lack of utility behind urban yoof speak, is positively endearing.

Preston's talent is taking mild eccentricity and suddenly twisting it into something much darker. Jay Richardson

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