By Ron Bingham 
Fanfiction is performed by a group of young New Zealanders in a small “pod” at the bottom of the Assembly gardens. The host, Tom, starts the show by giving some examples of genuine fan fiction, both of which were disturbing in very different ways (Rugrats with nine thousand miles of genitalia?! Poor Yogi).
There are a group of regular Fanfiction team members who perform clever, funny stories they have written about things they love. I don’t know if they perform the same ones every day but there is certainly a different special guest comedian each day who reads their own tale. Today we started off with a Fanfiction member’s story about The Avengers movie (which sadly, I haven’t seen). This was about a birthday party that went all wrong for the leader of the Avengers (Nick?). I enjoyed it, despite not getting most of the in-jokes from the movie. This will become my theme for the show, as I am so out of touch with modern culture.
Performer number two gave us a homo-erotic fantasy about the TV sitcom Friends (ten years later). There appeared to be a lot of funny stuff in this but, as I can only just vaguely recognise the names of the characters… It was still a very sick and demented tale of love gone very wrong, though, and there were a lot of laughs to be had.
Fanfiction number three was a very intimate tale from the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter (Yay, I’ve read this). Delightfully disturbing and a little pervy in places, is the best way I can describe it and it was a hoot.
The fourth reading was Romeo and Juliet, but with Romeo as a rat and Juliet as a mouse. I was impressed by the source material until our reader confessed HE hadn’t read the play and had only really seen the trailer of the film. So not really closely following the original and if he’s not a fan of Romeo & Juliet, how is this Fan Fiction? Everyone enjoyed it though and that’s the main thing. It was (once again) a sick and twisted tale of love, sex and violence. I’m starting to get a bit worried about these Fans who write fiction…..
The final story was from today’s special guest, Anil Desai, who gave us Family Guy at Twin Peaks (and you guessed it, I know very little of either of these, although I did try to watch Family Guy a few times). Anil is an excellent mimic and the voices (that I recognised) were spot on. The story was very David Lynch-like, entertaining but baffling.
So, the show is a very fun way to spend an hour, though there will be references you will miss if you’re not a big follower of mainstream culture. Still, despite being mostly baffled, I really enjoyed the well told stories, so maybe if you like hearing about perverted hats, Rugrats with 9,000 mile long genitalia or what Joey and Chandler got up to in the van, then come and enjoy the fabulous pod of Fanfiction.
PS it’s on during the day, but you might not want to bring the kids.
Fanfiction Comedy is on at Assembly George Square at 4.40pm
For Bookings https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/fanfiction-comedy