Fringe comedy reviews: Will Adamsdale: AI, AI, Oh... | Sofie Hagen: I Think Some Of This Is My Fault + more

Will Adamsdale: AI, AI, Oh... ★★★★★

Underbelly George Square (Venue 300) until 29 August

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, watching Will Adamsdale back at the Fringe is like watching Fred Astaire, at his peak, tapdance. It looks relaxed. It looks easy. But the more closely you look, the more extraordinary his skill is revealed to be.

He does happen to mention that he won the Perrier Award in 2004. A few times. Well deserved. But since then he has spent some years not writing a novel and, post-Covid, took his family to a 'sticks adjacent' part of Dartmoor to live.

An Adamsdale hour is created like few others. He has a rare gift for writing beautifully crafted prose in his own voice. Tiny verbal callbacks are seeded through, gently alerting you to the care and cleverness here, should you want to notice them, but the story, as it belts along, is as utterly unexpected as it is enthralling.

After a slightly slow start, this is narrative comedy at its peak. Everything is here, and all treated with an elegance which is not often seen with this many laughs.

The end of the world, Bear Grylls, technophobia and Waitrose lead us into Will's increasingly surprising and intense relationship with AI, leading to a tragically 'almost' sitcom commission and the importance of stirring your Goodfellas sauce.

For someone who leads his school's 'anti iPhone for under 18s group', Will makes a genuinely attractive case for a melding of OI (Organic Intelligence) and AI. Sort of. Safe to say, it seems, for a short while, they made their own kind of magic together.

The denouement is emotionally right up there, with a posh Heathcliffe desperately seeking his Cathy who has gone (slightly less romantically, something to do with a month's trial running out).

Now one thing that must be addressed is the sweat quotient. Hydrophobes should give this show a wide berth. Will's sweat is like an entire second performer onstage. To be fair, that would make three on stage, as we are, as the story progresses, introduced to the voice of ChatGPT. Who seems like a nice well-informed girl. Kate Copstick

Sofie Hagen: I Think Some Of This Is My Fault ★★★★

Monkey Barrel (Venue 515) until 30 August

This show is a reckoning, about going home, re-evaluating your life and looking back over the wise, and the not so wise, decisions you have taken.

After spending years on the UK comedy circuit Sofie Hagen moved back to the small town in Denmark where she grew up, and it has made her reconsider everything. Did she spend too much time on social media? Did she get too carried away with her left-wing humanist principles? And is there anything she can do now, to put things right?

Framing her narrative with the remarkable true story of the eccentric former mayor of her hometown, Hagen picks apart her history, both personal and political. Hitler, Greta Thunberg and Donald Trump all become characters in her story, while Hagen characterises herself as an ideological flibbertigibbet, turning this way and that, as she tries to please too many people.

She takes us on a deep dive into her comedy career, which has incorporated fat activism, embracing neurodiversity and addressing sexual abuse. She is deliberately underplaying it; Hagen was well ahead of many trends in comedy, which have played out at the Fringe over the last ten years. She even managed to get herself cancelled before it really became a thing.

Hagen always had the most eye-catching posters and the best show titles – but this year is flying deliberately under the radar, with not a single poster or flyer advertising her return. It’s an experiment, and it works. Hagen has found a new way to re-examine her life story in a way which is playful, inventive and very funny.

There’s a real sense of jeopardy as Hagen draws the audience into her inner world, leading us into crushing existential doubt, before finally leading us out into the cool fresh air on the other side. Claire Smith

Paul Foot: The Future ★★★

Underbelly Cowgate(Venue 61) until 30 August

There was a time when people were excited about the future. Remember that? It seems a long time ago, but Paul Foot, the ever-affable master of whimsy, sets out to give us some hope.

Deploying his trademark tangents and surreal segues, he gets entertaining mileage out of what impresses English (yes, he’s clear that he does mean English) people in restaurants, before allowing his unique imagination to skip off into other topics, from funeral home scenarios to the gap in the market for modern fables.

This year Foot takes on a few more meaty ideas, though, sticking up for trans people and immigrants, imagining a world in which everyone – not just straight white men – had always been allowed to do science, and sharing some poignant insight into the experience of his grandmother, who escaped the Nazis as a solo 16-year-old with a tiny suitcase.

He wants to remind us that dark moments can force us to be truthful about who we are, and if we can be honest about the point of life – whether that’s creating and enjoying art, community, nature or something that’s else enriching and beyond the reach of those who care only for power and money – we’ll find some hope.

Plus, if you don’t come you’ll miss out on the best Stephen Hawking joke you’ll ever year. Ashley Davies

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Grace Mulvey: Gigantica ★★★

The Box At Assembly George Square (Venue 8) until 30 August

Grace Mulvey has always been told she looks like her Dad, a man with a head so big he had to buy a specially made cycle helmet. She’s always been on the large side but now, in the Age of Ozempic, she’s decided to screw the diets and accept herself, if only she can work out who she is.

Mulvey, who is Irish but based in London, is a smart and confident comic, who lands some big laughs with her down to earth self-deprecating schtick.

Like generations of comics before them, the millennials have finally realised they are getting older. And it’s landing differently as this perennially online generation searches for an identity beyond the confines of the group chat.

Mulvey talks about make-up, about body image and about the perils of dating. She has a very witty turn of phrase and she’s an extremely likeable performer but there’s not really enough structure to sustain her narrative through an hour.

It’s only when a family crisis forces her to realise that she really is her father’s daughter that this show gets into its stride. Mulvey finally finds the emotion and the insight to make her story come to life. Claire Smith

Chief Petty Officer ★★★

West Nic Records (Venue 442) until 16 August

This is a lovely, friendly way to spend an hour. It is not non-stop hilarity, but it is a great deal of genuine fun, and that is a good chunk of anyone's day.

Vix celebrates all that might be construed, and unfairly dismissed, as 'petty' in the world. She categorises it with the help of her hi-tech Hill to Die On graphics array and gallops us through a miasma of small – and not so small – mindedness across the years.

It is impossible not to like Vix and so to enjoy with her the vicissitudes of life's lesser debacles from potholes and the Colin the Caterpillar through the historical, the zoological, the celebrity and the political. Pettiness is, it seems, always with us. And jolly entertaining it is, especially when it involves soft porn or huge rap stars with handbags drawn at dawn.

I particularly loved Vix's Lesley Gore section and will be heading to download the entire album. When a performer is sharing their genuine fascination with and enjoyment of any subject it makes us enjoy it too. And we do. Although I still cannot believe 50 Cent is so pathetically (and expensively) PETTY. Kate Copstick

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