Edinburgh Fringe is renowned for the weird and wonderful. Within the extent of the Royal Mile and over the 400 venues where thousands of performances take place, new comedy of all kinds are in every corner. Things you could never imagine occur within the liberal city’s small, cramped, make-shift performance rooms. Albeit some of it outrageous and of poor quality, however more often than not you will witness sheer laughter from audiences watching all kinds of comics.
My favourite kind of comedy is something that can make you laugh and cry, usually this is portrayed better through the form of a play or film. Due to the nature of the weird and wonderful of the Fringe, this kind of comedy was at large sparse compared to the form of stand up or sketch show. However I am a poor student so couldn’t afford to watch the plays on offer (I could barely afford the Greggs pasties I was living off). If you walk down 10 metres of the infamous Royal Mile, you shall be bombarded with leaflets advertising all sorts of shows. One that caught my eye was a man shouting “I can make you a Tory” handing out leaflets with the same bold statement sprawled across. Edinburgh Fringe is about discovering new views, ideas and realms of scope, so despite my opposing political view I went along, albeit slightly reluctantly to watch this comic do an hour set in which he promised me I would leave loving the Conservative party and Mrs May. Leo Kearse, the comic whom performed this piece, not to my surprise didn’t make me a Tory however he did perform an hour of some of the best satirical humour I had witnessed. His self-deprecation of his hometown in the highlands, his thoughts on die hard vegans and the ridiculousness of a soft, hard and squishy Brexit. Despite opposing views on the handle of the country his witty remarks when taken in good jest have genius written all over. When it comes to politics if one does not laugh then one will cry. Kearse chose to do the first of these things, even the most left wing, alpro milk loving human would struggle not to smirk.
However the brilliance of the satirical stand up could do with being 20 mins shorter. The first 40 mins are full of arresting genuine ideas about the state of politics in the country. The last part of the show lacked in this satire that made the show so striking. The jokes turned to crude remarks, although funny it was in a completely different tone to the prior wit. It did show his ability to work in different comic forms however considering the title of the show was so concept lead with “I can make you a Tory”, comments about his genitalia for 15 minutes I felt somewhat unnecessary. In spite of this, it was a free show and with my money for a Greggs katsu pasty running low I giggled along nonetheless.
