Fringe comedy reviews: Phil Nichol | Sam Eley is Basil Crumbwick | Finlay Christie | Maxx Eddy

Phil Nichol: Aren’t We Lucky ★★★

Gilded Balloon Teviot (Venue 14) until 30 August

Tibetan Buddhists have a concept called “precious human birth’, which is all about recognising and celebrating how rare it is to be alive. Something along those lines is threaded through this show from Phil Nichol, although having been raised Plymouth Brethren, he is now strictly an atheist.

The former Comedy Award winner introduces us to his religious parents during this supercharged ramble, which also takes in a story about Lou Reed and a friend with leukemia. I like the concept, but Phil’s high octane performance style doesn’t really gel with the subject matter. He sings, he does impersonations, he roams the aisle, he tries to kiss a man.

There are too many bells and whistles, it’s all done at breakneck speed and it doesn’t give the impression of being fully thought through. Having said that, I saw him early in the run and Edinburgh is a great place to build a show, so if you pop in later you might see something more satisfying.

The Lou Reed story is lovely, it’s fun to meet Phil’s Scottish mum and dad and while it is all a bit rushed, it’s always a pleasure to check in with the Duracell bunny of live comedy. Claire Smith

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Sam Eley is Basil Crumbwick: Soul Sewage ★★★

Monkey Barrel Comedy (Monkey Barrel 2) (Venue 515) until 30 August

A depraved and grotesque ghoul of a man, Basil Crumbwick lurches into the Monkey Barrel's basement late at night and pollutes each corner with the grim stench of his misanthropic whinging.

Sam Eley's bulging, bloodshot-eyed, absurdist alter-ego obviously owes a visual debt to Chris Sievey's legendary Frank Sidebottom. Yet the only similar spark of humanity in him comes from the neighbour who continues to ask after him despite him abusing her at every turn.

In many respects the caricature of a lonely, confused Boomer, Basil nevertheless doesn't lack for confidence and scheming, committed in his demented plot to befriend his binman and the bizarre, Playboy Mansion-set self-help advice he bestows.

At times simply scared and aggressively defensive, at others spouting the familiar bigotry of many 64-year-olds putting the world to rights, at his most entertaining, Basil breaks out into the utterly surreal, inspired portrait of an absolute wrong 'un.

His bulbous, elephantine head clearly makes exceptional physical demands upon Eley, as does the need to be sneeringly vile for an hour. He runs out of gas a bit and you end up with more sympathy than you should for both by the time he takes his leave. Still, you're left with plenty of his abidingly foul, inexplicably funny despairings to recall. Jay Richardson

READ MORE: My Festival - Phil Nichol

Finlay Christie: Champagne Casanova ★★★

Monkey Barrel 4 @ Monkey Barrel Comedy (Venue 515) until 30 August

Finlay Christie, fresh outta Islington, is refreshingly upfront and relaxed about his middle class privilege. He kicks off his show with a good ten minutes of class-based crowdwork, with gags about property, private school and ancestral wealth.

What’s remarkable is the way he’s found to own it. He is never sneery or superior, just rather cheerful about being comfortably off and relatively trauma-free.

Christie has an engagingly naïve persona. Even when he gets mugged he manages to come out on top. Like a lot of his stories, it ends with a cheeky little brother wink to the audience. He’s good on dating mishaps and the manosphere, owning his own romantic incompetence in a way which allows him to direct some compassion towards the poor unfortunate incels of the world.

There’s a sweet moment where he discovers a couple in the crowd have been together eight years and are planning to get married. “What’s it like?” he asks, with genuine curiosity.

The young whippersnapper gets a lot of big laughs from his minute observations of British life, but it’s not quite enough to sustain an hour. However Christie has charm, self awareness and comic talent in abundance. Time is on his side. Claire Smith

Maxx Eddy: Bi Meets World ★★

Gilded Balloon Patter House (Venue 24) until 31 August

Having been bullied for being gay (half right, he jokes), young US comic Max Eddy has spent too much of his life trying to act like an alpha male, and is here to help us understand his position.

He’s a strong storyteller (even if not all the tales serve the narrative) and he definitely knows how to craft a good joke. There’s no doubt that he’s destined for greater things, but he would benefit from relaxing into the material, not losing his nerve when the gags don’t land, and not assuming a lack of laughter means we don’t understand the line. Ashley Davies

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