Monkey Barrel Comedy – Squirrel Comedy

Zoe Coombs Marr: Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life

By Ron Bingham

Zoe is a very energetic performer but she’s set herself a rather ridiculous task., in which she will try to relate everything that happened in her life using spreadsheets and other techie paraphernalia to try to find meaning from it all. Zoe knows it’s impossible, we know it’s impossible, but we’re going to have a lot of fun trying.

In an hour of course, the most she can do is find some significant stories that stand out in her memory and work from there. The first story was about the prevalence of frogs in Australia to hang about in toilets. This occurs mostly in country towns and caravan parks. I well remember my mum’s terror at coming back from a shower block to tell us there was a line of little eyes staring at her from the top of walls. Lizards, too. Anyway, back to Zoe. She was five and it happened to her at school, leading to an embarrassing situation of the kind that makes your skin crawl to remember.

We were then led on a journey through a random selection of events in her life, all of which had stories attached not all exciting or even very poignant, but she kept the laughs rolling. In fact, Zoe was having so much fun with today’s audience, that we ended up running over time by about ten minutes. We also got a little philosophy and some video footage from Zoe’s art school days. I still have no idea who Bomfunk MCs are.

The show was fast paced and Zoe hardly paused for the entire time of telling us about her youthful embarrassments. If you’re after the ultimate Aussie take on the meaning of life, this is the show to see.

Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life is on at Monkey Barrel Comedy until August 25

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/zoe-coombs-marr-every-single-thing-in-my-whole-entire-life

Phil Ellis: Come On and Take The Rest of Me

By Ron Bingham

Once again Phil has come up with a cracker of a show.

Starting with a DJ coming on to introduce our comedian of the hour, we are treated to yet more tales of woe and calamity from Phil’s life. These include going back to live with his parents at the age of 42, being dumped by his girlfriend for unspecified reasons which could involve the tiny flat he moved into, and some interesting habits. The DJ punctuated Phil’s routine with occasional sound-effects, often at random.

I think the saddest moment (for me) was hearing Phil’s show last year was nominated for a comedy award (which I think he was almost proud of losing). I have seen most of his other Edinburgh shows, and he improves every time. There are a couple of other cameos and some slides of cute dogs, a song or two, and some hilariously bad stories about the pointlessness of having too much stuff or trying too hard in life.

The room was full and the large audience was very vocal in their praise of the show. One of the funniest shows of the Fringe, but it should not be allowed to win any awards – as that might cheer Phil up and we don’t want a happy Phil!

Come On and Take The Rest of Me is on at Monkey Barrel Comedy until August 25

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/phil-ellis-come-on-and-take-the-rest-of-me

Lauren Pattison: Big Girl Pants

By Ron Bingham

This year’s show from Lauren, Big Girl’s Pants, is all about her turning 30 and attempting to be more courageous in her life. The examples of courage include learning to drive (after over 180 hours of lessons), standing up to some rowdy hecklers at a comedy gig, and going in for an intimate check-up. There is also the story of her best friend’s courageous decision to seek help for a medical condition.

The stories are told in, as always, her delightful Newcastle accent, at a fast pace and peppered liberally with jokes and wry observations on life. The check-up story may be considered a little too gruesome for some gentlemen, but that’s par for the course. As someone who once had a biopsy on their neck, I can only feel a wave of sympathy after hearing where Lauren had hers done! The show is packed full of stories, side-stories and comic vignettes, and these are interlaced with moments of sadness and poignancy.

The room was full and is probably selling out, but if you’re quick, you can always hope to be one of the lucky punters getting one of the five or so “walk up” seats available each day. Every time I see Lauren perform, I am impressed with her growth as a storyteller and comedian.

Big Girl Pants is on at Monkey Barrel Comedy until August 25

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/lauren-pattison-big-girl-pants

Olga Koch Comes From Money

By Ron Bingham

A very loud and boisterous audience for this show. Partly as we’d just escaped the rain and partly because there was a bar at the back open before the show started. A full house to see Olga, who started the show by doing some dance moves through the audience before bounding onto the stage. We first received a history of how Olga’s family became rich (in the right place when the USSR broke up), and her life in Russia, then the USA and finally in London, the benefits of being wealthy through luck and the advantages that gives.

Olga is a very confident communicator, possibly thanks to her years in IT trying to persuade kids in eastern European countries to join a certain famous video sharing platform, before she quit. We are regaled with stories of living with sudden wealth, of being too wealthy for some situations, not wealthy enough in others and some personal anecdotes from Olga’s life.

Mostly the show is about the class structure, and how it manifests in different countries – Russia, where having money is all down to luck, the USA, where it could be hard work or a recent inheritance, and the UK, where there’s money sloshing around in the family for centuries.

Olga is a brilliant, polished comedian. She was a little worried near the end, where we all appeared to be more fascinated by the ideas she was expounding and forgetting to laugh, but then a man in the front row piped up to mention he knew her dad in the old days – leading to someone else in the same row asking if he was an assassin who had come for Olga.

Olga Koch Comes From Money is on at Monkey Barrel Comedy until August 25

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/olga-koch-comes-from-money

Tony Law: The Law Also Rises

By Ron Bingham

We knew what we were in for when Tony came out on stage in a top hat, frock t-shirt, tartan-ish trousers held up by braces, a pair of elbow length gardening gloves and holding an old-fashioned paper shopping bag, declaring “this could be the worst show of the Fringe … but it will stay with you”. What followed was an hour of anarchy held loosely together by a couple of half-remembered routines and some reminiscences about the old days when his kids were young and naive enough to want to join him on stage (often dressed in special outfits) to perform sketches or beg the audience for an extra donation at the end of the show. But they are teenagers now, and have too much street cred/class to want to stay in a caravan in North Berwick for a month and hang out with their dad.

We heard a lot about Tony’s kids and his Irish grandfather, and the joys of living alone in a caravan on the Scottish border with no phone signal, and only downloaded videos that his cats enjoy to keep him company (yes, that does sort of make sense when he talks about it).

If you are new to Tony, then this will appear to be a crazy hour of an eccentric old man on stage, constantly flying off on tangents, and determined to never finish a routine with anything like a punchline. For people who have been following him for years, this is an excellent addition to the life story of a comedian determined not to follow the standard path of selling out for fame and money.

The audience on the day I was there was mostly old fans (groupies?) who thoroughly enjoyed the show. At the end, you can also buy a postcard with a download code for Tony’s previous five shows (the postcard is of a much younger and beardless Tony). Five nuts for fans, but probably three for newbies, so … four?

The Law Also Rises is on at Monkey Barrel Comedy (The Hive) until August 12

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/tony-law-the-law-also-rises