Edinburgh Fringe comedy reviews: Takashi Wakasugi | Furiozo | Dima Watermelon

Travel around the world with a collection of reviews of Edinburgh Fringe comedy shows from around the world, each offering a unique perspective from their respective countries.

Takashi Wakasugi: Welcome to Japan

Assembly George Square Studios (Studio Four) (Venue 17) until 25 August

★★★★

Furiozo: Man Looking for Trouble

Underbelly, Cowgate (Iron Belly) (Venue 61) until 25 August

★★★★

Dima Watermelon: Ukrainian Dream

Laughing Horse @ The Raging Bull (Cellar) (Venue 332) until 25 August

★★★

Mustafa Algiyadi: Almost Legal Alien

Just The Tonic Nucleus (Just the Sub-Atomic Room) (Venue 393) until 25 August

★★

One of the most appealing aspects of comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe nowadays is its international seasoning and diversity, as the spread of acts is increasingly drawn from beyond the traditional, English-speaking centres of the UK and Ireland, Australasia and North America. And for sheer culture clash hilarity, I'd strongly recommend Japanese stand-up Takashi Wakasugi, whose pride in his homeland and disparaging of Western culture makes a refreshing change to the instinctive self-deprecation and suspicion of patriotism felt by British acts. Just hear the roars of amusement when Wakasugi dares to question the pre-eminence of one of Scotland's most prized exports. Despite now residing in Melbourne, he's still very much a fish-out-of-water adjusting to a new environment. This allows him to make some pretty broad and blunt class snobbery dismissals of the likes of Lidl shoppers that would be simply outrageous if voiced by a native performer.

Yet with his overflowing politeness, seemingly authentic curiosity and desire to integrate, he remains charming to the point of being loveable. And that's a winning combination when aligned with his restless observational eye, forcing you to look anew at the cuisine, shops and language of your own everyday purchasing that you've so long taken for granted. There's abundant pleasure in seeing him agonisingly trying to fathom the concept of a “pizza sandwich” from a number of different angles. And it's a genuine joy to be insulted by him.

Also compellingly antagonistic and recently nurtured in Melbourne is Furiozo, the ultra-masculine creation of Polish clown Piotr Skiora. Largely going under the radar at last year's Edinburgh, the reprisal of this intense, thuggish yet beautiful piece after it was awards garlanded in Australia is to be celebrated. Bullet-headed and muscled in boxer shorts, with a penchant for cocaine, crime and violence, Furiozo is an almost wordless, toxic hooligan, pure, selfish id as he helps himself to audience members' belongings and goes on the scarper from the police.

Even from the start though, his desires are also that of a giant, tantruming toddler. And there's a childlike sense of play to the ways in which he co-opts the crowd into his set-pieces. Gradually, a tenderer side to the beast emerges. And when his awful lusts start to catch up with him, the feeling of tragedy is palpable. Keeping you on the edge of your seat throughout, it's another reminder that in terms of physical comedy at least, we still have much to learn and appreciate from our European neighbours.

Not a clown, despite his name, Dima Watermelon is a Ukrainian stand-up who's established himself on Berlin's burgeoning live comedy scene. Indeed, before the war with Russia, he could claim the hip German capital as an aspect of his personality. And he now feigns annoyance with Vladimir Putin for giving him the burden of representing an oppressed people.

Contrasting the pithy way he characterises himself for Western audiences in a manner they'll appreciate, his stand-up is characteristically world-weary and cloaked in cynicism, openly expounding on the corruption and limited horizons of his homeland, while enjoying the fall of Western European living standards that are gradually equalising the continent. Joined by his mother in Germany, he immediately turns anti-refugee. Yet born in Chernobyl, he ultimately can't escape the generational trauma of his nation and doesn't try to. His barbed, baiting geopolitical satire isn't always the easiest to listen to as it occasionally tips into rant. Yet it's rendered with impressive feeling and he closes with a powerfully articulated desire for the deliverance of his people.

Also working out of Berlin, Mustafa Algiyadi is a Libyan Arab stand-up who appears to enjoy being a migrant rather more than Watermelon, yet still finds himself having to overturn preconceptions about his appetites for sex and alcohol, while invariably getting stopped at airport security. Well-educated in his homeland, he plays status games with hierarchies and adopts an often superior, lecturely tone in his crowd work. No doubt a major consideration for someone in his position and an acquirement he celebrates, his constant harping upon the need to secure a good passport, through marriage or otherwise, comes across as mercenary and a little too on the nose, while not ever being substantial enough to hang so much of his show upon.

More compelling is the tale of his awakening adolescent sexuality, the embarrassing way it manifested itself and the impact it had upon his family when it was revealed. In trying to be edgy elsewhere, he talks about physically chastising disruptive kids on public transport in a way that's just horrible, with no redeeming irony and which no amount of cultural relativism can make palatable.Jay Richardson