So that was the 70th anniversary of the Edinburgh Fringe and Festival. Once again the weather was changeable, with reports that it was the wettest summer in Scotland for 80 years. We arrived in the rain, but the frequent showers were never enough to dampen our enthusiasm. There were four Squirrels in Edinburgh this year and all of us have written below about shows weâve loved, or not loved, or not had the chance to write about previously.
The Big news to come out of this special anniversary festival is that Australiaâs own multi award winning (The Barry, The Helpmann, Adelaide Best Comedy) comedy champion Hannah Gadsby has won the Best Comedy Show Award at Edinburgh. It was a joint win with John Robins and my impression is that their shows are a sort of yin and yang, with Johnâs show The Darkness of Robins being an anguished cry of help from the depths of a breakup with his more famous girlfriend Sara Pascoe (who was doing her own take on the breakup in an equally well reviewed but not nominated Fringe show Lads, Lads, Lads) and Hannahâs being a powerful, rallying rant of revelation against the apocalypse, Nanette. Previous Australian winners of Best Comedy at Edinburgh Fringe are Los Trios Ringbarkus, Lano & Woodley, Brendon Burns and Sam Simmons.
Other nominees for the 2017 Edinburgh Best Comedy Award were Ahir Shah, Elf Lyons, Jordan Brookes, Mae Martin, Mat Ewins, Sophie Wilan and Spencer Jones.
Best Newcomer Winner at Edinburgh Fringe was Natalie Palamides for Laid. The Nominees for Best Newcomer were; Chris Washington, Darren Harriott, Ed Night, Kwame Asante, Lauren Pattison, Lucy Pearman and Rob Kemp.
Rob Kemp did win Comediansâ Choice Award for Best Performer and Mat Ewins Presents Adventureman 7: The Return of Adventureman won best Comediansâ Choice Award Best Show.
Hannah will bring Nanette for its premiere season at the Sydney Opera House from  September 27 â October 8, before a string of encore performances at the Arts Centre Melbourne from Nov 18 culminating in Hamer Hall on Dec 1. I shouldn’t have to urge you to see it, if you’ve missed out on it so far.
Squirrel writersâ Edinburgh Fringe Round up
Colin Flaherty
My highlights at Fringe happen to be ones that I have reviewed, in particular 
Big Howard, Little Howard (Howard Read) â Man and Boy
Andrew OâNeillâs Black Magick Fun Hour
Simon Munnery â Renegade Plumber
I also enjoyed Stuart Goldsmith – Like I Mean It, a hilarious hour that follows on from his previous show Compared to What where he continues to explore life with his new wife and son. He presents plenty of brilliant observations and plays around with the bird with clipped wings husband angle perfectly.
One off event WiFi Wars was a hoot, even though many of the games refused to play correctly on my underpowered tablet (I was only expecting to word process and web surf on it after all!). This late night, tech heavy show had punters competing individually as well as in teams. We laughed, we cheered and we got our geek on!
I had high hopes for Boris & Sergey’s One Man Extravaganza, an ambitious show featuring complicated puppetry, a crazy blurb and some wacky characters but I found it overlong and not enough laughs to hold my attention. Apart from the wonderful voicing of the characters, the expressionless puppets failed to connect with me.
Lisa Clark
I loved all the shows I reviewed with Jayde Adams (Is Jayded) being the exciting new discovery of the Fringe for me. The following are shows I loved but did not get a Squirrel write up.
Craig Ferguson â The Craig Ferguson Show. All the Squirrels saw Craigâs recording of his live radio show and we all enjoyed it. Starting at 11.30pm to go live for drive time in the USA as well as Canada and Mexico, it went for 2 hours and consisted of two very entertaining in-depth chats with performers who were old friends of Craig. In our case an old close friend impressionist/comedian Jan Ravens and Scottish writer Iain Rankin.
Chris Coltrane – Make Love & Smash Fascism – a rather lovely, warm and approachable political comedian who taught me about the evils of Neo Liberalism which is extreme capitalism & pro privatisation of everything which basically seems to be the road to anarchy.
Dave Johns â I, Fillum Star. Dave Johns has been a jobbing comedian all his life and just as he was planning his retirement (he was going to give kids donkey rides at the seaside), he got a part in a film. On the 1st day director Ken Loach said, oh by the way the film is named after your character because you are the lead. I, Daniel Blake won a swag of awards taking Dave to Cannes and the BAFTAs and giving him a cracking tale to tell, and being a great comedian means Dave knows how to tell it for maximum laughs. This was a joy to experience with the message that itâs never too late.
Yianni Agisilaou â Pockets of Equality. As the title suggests, itâs about sexual politics and pockets. More importantly it was a very personal heartwarming show about love and family and one of the best shows Iâve ever seen Yianni do.
Disappointing shows were; Boris & Sergey’s One Man Extravaganza, a puppet show where three puppeteers per puppet failed to give the faceless repulsive puppets any personality, or make an interesting show. Then there was The Great Comedy Cooking Challenge which in no way described the show at all. The two guys had not planned their Festival show at all leaving the audience more bemused than amused and the main one telling the story of how he fell in love with cooking kept saying âI think that mightâve gotten a better laughâ. Nup.
Back to other highlights for me which were the inimitable and indefatigable Doug Anthony Allstars â Near Death Experience, Wifi Wars live online gaming which was a completely different kind of Festival show and finally, Simon Munnery doing a gorgeously crafted show about fixing things, bookended by two great songs. I was lucky to see Simon when Renegade Plumber had been bedded in and found it to be the tightest show Iâve seen of his in years, it was a beautiful blend of the personal and political, with the title perfectly describing the show.
Phoebe OâBrien
Fringe Shows that were highlights not formally reviewed
2 Become 1
The Swipe Right Theatre Company have created a fun and fabulous night that will capture your heart with its upbeat mix of 90âs music. It will also hit you right in the funny bone with A grade performances from a heavenly cast.
The cast of four stunning vocalists sing the hits; from Destinyâs Child to Desâree to the Spice Girls and so many more! The 90âs bangers are intertwined within a story of friendship and heartbreak, as one of characterâs, Jess breaks up with her boyfriend. After the news, her best gal pals do the only thing that would obviously âhelpâ Jess from a breakdown due to the breakupâŠspeed dating.
At its core â2 Become 1â is heartfelt and funny. You can even have a little boogie and sing-a-long of your own while youâre there. Now tell me, what more could you want? Could you really, really want?
David Quirk – Cowboy Mouth
After missing David Quirk during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, there was no better option than to catch his show âCowboy Mouthâ at the Fringe. Quirk is the king when it comes to long form narrative story-telling, his tales from his childhood and the awkward meeting with his neighbour were tops.
Amongst the anecdotes, the show was knitted together with audio clips of the recollections of dreams people have had about him.
ps. Quirk performed on a bus and had an excellent jacket. Very cool.
Britney – John
A hidden treasure amongst the thousands of incredible Fringe shows was the sketch duo behind John. Charly Clive and Ellen Robertson are two 20 something year old mates from the UK, who make up âBritneyâ.
In their show âJohnâ, the pair reminisce about the time they were just out of high school, exploring America and working on a documentary about president of Congress; John Hancock. For the documentary, they filmed interviews around America with other men with the same name. Their trip abroad became the centre for the show, with critique of the footage and their interviewing technique strong points of the show. Their ability to create stand-alone vignettes and natural storytelling was a highlight, revealing the effort both Clive and Robertson put into their follow up to their previous show âBritneyââŠwhich is also now the name of their duo, not confusing at all. I strongly believe we will be hearing big things from these two talented performers.
Alice Marshall – Blood
In her show solo show Blood, Alice Marshall captivates her audience with wonderfully executed character sketch comedy. Marshall has great comedic timing, while delivering a punchy hour of pure joy. I canât wait to see more of her work further down the track.
Ron Bingham
My Squirrel fest started with a couple of excellent Aussie acts which turned out to be highlights Laura Davis (Cake in the Rain) and the Doug Anthony All Stars (Near Death Experience).
The three other shows that made me laugh out loud the most were:
Lucy Pearman â Maid of Cabbage 
Demi Lardner â Look What You Made Me Do
Mark Steel â Every Little Thingâs Gonna Be Alright.
Lucy and Demi for their props and general air of controlled chaos, and Mark for his political insights and honesty about his recent marital troubles. I also enjoyed Muriel -(Bad Master) for their use of multimedia and fun sketches and The Canon -(A Literary Sketch Show) for their literary humour
I saw some fabulous new talent (two were deservedly nominated for best newcomer – Lauren Pattison and Lucy Pearman) and caught up with some excellent established acts. Saw some early shows and some late ones, drank a little too much of the free alcohol early on, nearly got blown off the top of Arthurs Seat after seeing a show up there called This Arthur’s Seat Belongs to Lionel Richie, and missed a lot of acts (ones I regret most not managing to fit into my schedule include Sarah Kendall, Ingrid Oliver and Hannah Gadsby). Importantly I only saw two shows which didn’t achieve the high standard I expect. Met a lot of lovely people, as always, and have already pre-booked for next year.
