Edinburgh Fringe comedy reviews: Jazz Emu: Knight Fever | Amy Mason: Free Mason | Eric Rushton: Real One | Simon Hall: 4 Big Cs | Gearóid Farrelly: Gearóid Rage

Archie Henderson's pitch-perfect pastiche of music video pretension Jazz Emu should really have its own cult TV show by now, while Amy Mason makes a cracking introduction with a show all about belated, begrudging self-acceptance

Jazz Emu | Dylan Woodley

COMEDY

Jazz Emu: Knight Fever ★★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance One) (Venue 33) until 25 August

With his exquisitely realised character, an already substantial back catalogue of genre-spanning, brilliant songs and pitch-perfect pastiche of music video pretension, it seems incredible that no-one has yet transplanted Jazz Emu onto television in a contrived, Flight Of The Conchords-style sitcom. Only the collapse of broadcasting budgets and the character killing it online already can explain this oversight. No matter, because with his latest live show, Knight Fever, Archie Henderson's blissfully deluded and effortlessly egotistical creation demonstrates what grand comic folly can still be accomplished with relatively restrained production values.

Backed by his three-piece band, The Cosmique Perfectión, Jazz is ostensibly relinquishing the spotlight somewhat, though in practice his faux-humility ensures he's as centre stage as ever. Moreover, with vaulting ambition, he's making an open play for a knighthood, a flimsy framing of chivalric honour and traditional values sent up through his scheming and craven jumping through hoops for an accolade he feels he richly deserves. Along the way, he's persecuted by an online fraudster, a demonic legal representative and his nemesis, the outwardly butter-wouldn't-melt American singer Kelly Clarkson. He furiously strives to game the nomination process, taking help from virtual assistant Siri, in the form of a rudimentary, barely functioning robot.

That's the plot, such as it is. However the show is, of course, chiefly the songs, double-your-laughter interplay between slick video gags and the tunes rendered live and tight on the stage, ranging from an arch, nakedly pandering croon to return the country to some fantasy bygone era of Rule Britannia, to a spaced out Jazz existentially overwhelmed as he waits indefinitely for the DVD logo to bounce into the corner of his television. Deliberately hokey elements, any number of tangents and the overarching, idiosyncratic daftness can't stop all the disparate threads being pulled together at the end for a silly but satisfying conclusion.

Jay Richardson

COMEDY

Amy Mason: Free Mason ★★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Cellar) (Venue 33) until 26 August

A cracking introductory show this, from a distinctive comic in the process of redefining themselves. Amy Mason speculates that she might never have come out as gay at 38 if it hadn't been for the enforcement of lockdown, yet continued to live and co-parent her kids with her ex-husband for the duration of the pandemic. Often impassive save for the tiniest smile creeping out the corner of her mouth, and with an aridly dry delivery, she's not an animated presence at the microphone. Yet she relates her tale with an unhurried and understatedly commanding assurance. Moreover, her medicated calm – she recounts a history of using anti-depressants, her ante and postnatal struggles and her bipolar disorder with matter-of-fact straightforwardness - is a stark contrast to the recent upheaval in her life, trepidatiously entering the queer scene, forsaking recreational drugs and trying to figure out a best approach for explaining her life choices to her young daughters.

The initial impression she fosters is of a woman giving up, reducing her horizons to a sapphic, hermit-like existence, dealing with the hedgehogs in her cellar and maintaining her wasp trap, any lingering energy she has drained by her demanding, picky children who innocently bodyshame her. Yet even from the first, Mason is cheekily boundary-pushing, with a recurring refrain about sleeping with the audience's mums. And she latterly begins to stick up for herself, conveying her gay pride with a tart riposte to a homophobic WhatsApp message. Probably the highlight of her debut is the slightly bizarre but ultimately moving way in which the self-loathing vegetarian expresses her animalhood, glorying in her bovine maternal instincts rather than suppressing them with shame. You don't doubt for a second that she's still persecuted by any number of other insecurities. But Free Mason is a wonderful example of belated, begrudging self-acceptance channelled into a flourishing personality and consistently very funny performance.

Jay Richardson

COMEDY

Eric Rushton: Real One ★★★

Monkey Barrel Comedy (The Hive) (Venue 313) until 25 August

A fair portion of Eric Rushton’s income derives from his old school. As a kid, he had a sideline in selling crisps and sweets to his peers, and he returned as an adult, initially to work as an exam invigilator and then as a teaching assistant. (Nepotism was involved; his mum was a cleaner there.)

Thanks to these pursuits not always going smoothly, the inaugural winner of the Channel 4 Sean Lock Award fills this enjoyable hour with solid, beguilingly off-kilter material. One minute he’s regaling us with a committed exercise in office pettiness, and the next he’s imagining details of a date with Margot Robbie.

He’s got some great material about a bafflingly funny attempt at bullying and a fresh take on what kind of dead person he wants his charity shop-bought clothes to have belonged to. There are also some treats for pun fans, and it’s all delivered with understated wit and a well-honed demeanour of self-deprecation.

At the beginning of Real One, Rushton jokes this show might elevate your spirits but your mood will return to baseline level afterwards. The first bit is true, but there’s much in here that’ll keep you chuckling for days afterwards.

Ashley Davies

COMEDY

Simon Hall: 4 Big Cs ★★★

Laughing Horse @ West Port Oracle (Flight Club) (Venue 75) until 25 August

Blending well-honed observations and assured personal storytelling, Simon Hall's handling of the big topics of love and cancer is capably done. A former teacher, with a sideline in poetically reimagining fairytales, his booming voice and long, flowing locks afford this relatively new act an intermittent aura of authority and vulnerability, not a bad couple of modes for the tales he's imparting. A vegan and bisexual, he asserts his moral and progressive superiority with confidence, even if he knows precisely when to undercut himself. Pitched back into dating after his long-term relationship ended, with fascinated horror he explores the modern phenomenon of “dick pics”, projecting such crimes into more serious police scenarios in a way that's daft rather than dark. The abiding memory of his hour though, is a bittersweet account of falling head over heels in love again but then finding his partner's cancerous growth. Related with sensitivity but deft humour, it culminates in a superb routine about desire and consent that Hall takes you right into the bed for, a comedy of manners but with some of the highest stakes conceivable. Inspiring his carpe diem move to London and pursuing stand-up, a postscript about him compering a pretentious music festival feels lightweight by comparison, yet this remains a solid debut.

Jay Richardson

COMEDY

Gearóid Farrelly: Gearóid Rage ★★★

Assembly George Square (Venue 8) until 25 August

Gearóid Farrelly (the name rhymes with road) has made a name for himself in Ireland ranting about things that annoy him, even hosting Agony Rants – a podcast themed around complaining. His Edinburgh show, in a shipping container which he immediately finds fault with, is a run down of his favourite peeves, with a particularly graphic description of his sister’s children eating ice cream.

There’s a ridiculous story about how his parents misgendered their own dog and Farrelly, despite being openly gay since the age of twenty, was afraid to discuss it with them. He even revives a feud he conducted at the age of nine with the makers of Kinder Eggs over the lack of a particular plastic terrapin in the centre of their chocolates.

Sometimes he’s a bit too snarky for his own good. Farrelly snaps at some over enthusiastic fans in the front row who had just been telling everyone in the queue how much they loved him. He has a tendency to bolt his material which does him no favours. While many of his flurries of pique are amusing, his offhanded outing of himself as a “Karen” is a tired cliché and not the zinger he hopes.

Claire Smith