Phil your boots as Comedy Award winner Nichol returns to Fringe - Vladimir McTavish
This year’s Fringe programme launched on Thursday and it’s the usual case of too much choice.
There are exciting new faces and a number of old favourites returning after several years’ absence.
Former Comedy Award winner Phil Nichol returns to Edinburgh after a decade and he’s not taking it easy.
Four shows every day is par for the course for this Fringe favourite, still hyperactive in his sixties.
He reprises his 2006 show “Naked Racist”, which won the then if.comedy award, the successor to the Perrier, when he presented it at The Stand.
This year’s revival will be at The Gilded Balloon at 9.45pm. Whether he has changed the ending of the show will be interesting.
In the original version 20 years ago, Phil didn't just end with a huge naked crowd; he actively convinced audience members to strip down at the climax of his gig.
Whether he can recruit the original naked people is hardly a given, two decades of physical decline later.
He also brings “The Cray Cray Cabaret” back to the Voodoo Rooms at 7.30pm for two weeks. This is a cabaret show which he and David Tims have been producing at London’s Comedy Store for several years.
He is doing another solo project “Aren’t We Lucky?” at the Gilded Balloon at 5.20pm. This show is a celebration of everything that makes us feel good about life.
His day starts at 2.30pm in the play “11-and-a-half Angry Men” at The Caves.
In case you hadn’t guessed, this is a follow-up to “Twelve Angry Men” which was produced at The Assembly Rooms over a decade ago.
And it also features some of that play’s original cast, including Irish comedian Ian Coppinger.
Ian barely stands at five feet tall, making me think he is the “half” man in the title.
This is some schedule for Phil at the Fringe. No wonder it’s taken him so long to return!
At the other end of the career spectrum, one of Scotland’s most exciting new comedy talents will be showcasing her debut hour.
Livingston’s Eva Peroni is barely out of her teens but already an accomplished stand-up. Her show “Jungled” is at 4.40pm every day at The Gilded Ballon.
Eva has spent the last two years juggling comedy with her academic career. She finishes her masters in law at Edinburgh University this summer, so faces a difficult choice in September of which route to follow.
You don’t have a difficult choice in August. Go and see her show. This time next year, she could have her own Netflix special or decided to become a KC.
Ayo Adenekan, also in his early twenties, is making even bigger waves in the comedy scene. Brought up in Edinburgh by a Nigerian mother, he moved to London at the start of the year after signing to a major agency.
He has now become a big hit on the London circuit and has already started racking up TV credits. He still comes back home regularly for gigs and to see his mum.
Thankfully he’s in town all August, following up last year’s debut with his new show “Homeland Insecurity” at Monkey Barrel at 1.30.
Ayo is destined to be very big indeed. In fact, he already is very big indeed. He’s over six feet tall. This is a show not to miss.