By Kate Copstick

Published 17th Aug 2023, 12:07 BST

Updated 21st Aug 2023, 08:45 BST

Can You Put This In The Bin For Me? ***

Laughing Horse @ Eastside (Venue 164) until 27 August

Sex and Drugs and Getting Old ***

Laughing Horse @ Eastside (Venue 164), run ended

Jon Hipkiss: This Needs To Be Delightful **

PBH'S Free Fringe @ Little White Pig (Venue 639), until 27 August

Henry Ginsberg: Cuddle Slut ****

Laughing Horse @ City Cafe (Venue 85) until 27 August

It is rather nice to get away from the Old Town, and the open air mega-bar that it has become. Bristo Square is (I know because I asked) largely full of people who are not intending to go and see a show, but simply out drinking. And so it has that atmosphere. Like a huge outdoors Wetherspoons – albeit the price of a pint of cooking lager here will buy you a round in your local.

George Square is not quite so 'industrial' but similar. And the Cowgate is openly advertised by one venue as simply a place to 'party till 5am'. Massively hypocritical as it may seem for me to complain about too much drinking, it feels less and less like an arts festival.

Down on George Street, to be fair, there is just one block where the road has been totally closed to allow for more drinking and snacking, but it seems only a matter of time before this Council rents out St Giles for Comedy Communion with Cocktails.

If you look on the opposite side of George St from Assembly, you will find Eastsider: a cavernous subterranean bar, which is now a comedy venue. It feels nicely subversive to be here, almost in the maw of the Big Boys, but Free.

Can You Put This In The Bin For Me? is a mixed bill, international comedy show. It is advertised as a foursome of international comics at their best. I subsequently learn that it has, since the programme went to print, lost a comic and is more of a work in progress compilation. It is most definitely worth seeing. We get Ori Halevy who is an Israeli Jew now living in Germany, an Italian-German called Francesco Kirchhoff, and an intriguing mystery woman called Magdalena, of indeterminate origin. It is an unexpected mixture and a fascinating show.

Ori Halevy is a commanding presence onstage. And closer to the edge of racist than any comic I have seen in a long time. But he is only having a go at Germans, and he is Jewish, so that seems to make it all ok. He tells me later that the Germans themselves love his material. He is like no comic I have seen, and, despite myself, I want to see more.

Francesco does not start well but really gets into his stride with smart, risky but proper comedy about fascism. Francesco has done his history homework and fans of Julius Caesar will be thrilled. We also get yodelling as a weapon in the war against Nazis, TikTok and Gen Z. This is an impressive set. Our special Guest is Magdalena the Fortune Teller. This is unexpectable, clever, ridiculous but great stuff, crystal ball and all. I have laughed more in an hour, but I am so glad I saw this show.

Andy Zapp is a bit of a revelation. His Sex and Drugs and Getting Old offers gloriously daft, old school laughs on the subject of all three, with harmonica breaks. Andy shares the bits he can remember of a life lived to the full. We get a load of fun and jokes, marvellous 'confessions' (pissing in the sink, boys?) and tales of his adored wife Barbara, crammed into an hour and delivered with an energy and zest that normally would suggest a gift from Columbia. But Andy has been straight for decades. This is all natural joie de vivre, and it is utterly adorable.

Round the corner (and still on the east side of the city) there is another incredibly sweet, new venue called The Little White Pig. This feels like a Fringe again. This Needs To Be Delightful kicks off with a warm up Ginger, by the name of Sam Adamson, who totally fulfils the 'delightful' criterion with tales of a ginger childhood. I rather wanted him to stay on stage longer, especially after his unexpected bukkake reference. Good stuff.

Jon Hipkiss comes trailing plaudits from Jack Whitehall and John Robins. He is not easy to warm to, at least for me, and his show is a little bit all over the place, which would not be a problem were it funnier. Hipkiss is a recovering alcoholic and we learn a fair bit about that, as well as his taste in movies, and cheap Woolworths versions of toys. He 'reads' a presumably fake letter written to him by his Gran while he was in rehab. I found his use of that trope particularly irritating. There are some decent lines here, some nice ideas, but it lacked connection with the audience. Well, to be fair, with me.

Henry Ginsberg is an interesting performer. His hour spends comedy time in unexplored areas, and when he does hop on the well-trodden pathways, he does it differently. This is an impressive hour. Henry is heteroflexible (he will explain) with a clever and fresh load of funnies on the subject of sexuality, just at the point in the Fringe when one feels there is nothing more to be said.

His hour mixes terrific, fresh short-form material with some longer form. But all of it is really good, solid, smart stuff and Henry is an endearing performer. Health and 'inventive bullying', a delightful section about working at Wembley (with a serious killer two liner to top it) and quite a lot about porn create that lovely feeling of giggling your way through an hour.

Back in the maelstrom of Bristo Square, a lone, dedicated Fringe legend swims against the tide of commerce to offer passers by three jokes for £1. Proportionately, nowadays, that is rather a good deal. Especially as the joker is Ivor Dembina. It is an absolutely delightful experience and set, as it is, against a background of eye-watering expenditure in the Underbelly Megabar, Dembina's show gives its audience not just laughs (three at least, more if Ivor does some crowd work to kick things off), but the wonderfully quasi-subversive frisson that comes from knowing that you are part of the fight to Make Edinburgh Fringe Again.

Edinburgh Fringe comedy reviews: Can You Put This In The Bin For Me? | Sex and Drugs and Getting Old | Jon Hipkiss: This Needs To Be Delightful | Henry Ginsberg: Cuddle Slut