Edinburgh Fringe Comedy reviews: Natalie Palamides: WEER | Bronwyn Kuss: Sounds Good | Jason John Whitehead: Clubbed | Eddy Hare: This One's On Me | Mhairi Black: Politics Isn’t For Me

Our latest batch of Fringe comedy reviews includes an inspired double-act from LA comic Natalie Palamides and ex-MP Mhairi Black sharing some Westminster gossip. Words by David Pollock, Jay Richardson, Kate Copstick and Fiona Shepherd

Natalie Palamides in WEER | Contributed

COMEDY

Natalie Palamides: WEER ★★★★

Traverse Theatre (Venue 15) until 25 August

Anyone who witnessed Los Angeles character comic Natalie Palamides’ masterful show Nate at the Fringe in 2018 (later filmed for Netflix in 2020 by Amy Poehler’s production company) will be well aware of both her brilliance as a live performer and of the style of work she is most well-known for. Weer, her new show at the Traverse, isn’t a sequel to Nate, but it takes the central concept and brilliantly moves it on to the next level.

In Nate, Palamides played the title character in male drag, and there was something both highly amusing and weirdly transgressive about watching this slight female actor transform into a swaggering, moustachioed man-bro in a lumberjack coat, with a pub fight bruise under their eye. Nate wasn’t necessarily a bad guy, but he embodied physical threat and received misogynist attitudes and language with scary precision.

In Weer (the word “we’re”, but also a reference to Elmer Fudd’s pronunciation of the word “deer”), Mark and Christina are a couple who are in the midst of a cataclysmic break-up on the eve of the millennium, so much so that Christina drives off drunk and near-fatally ploughs into a deer. In a scenario as foolishly brave as it is outstandingly executed, Palamides plays both Mark and Christina – the right side of her body him, the left side her. Using a dead-arm trick or a quick head-turn during a face-caressing kiss, in fact, she becomes both characters at once.

This is all fiercely watchable and outrageously funny for any number of reasons, including those we might be familiar with from Nate (Mark’s lunk-headed misogyny, Palamides’ emphatic but just barely non-transgressive audience interaction) and some we aren’t, including a note-perfect skewering of 1990s romcoms and their attitudes to the sexes, a cavalier set destruction which it seems impossible to reset in 24 hours, and a tour de force of clowning physical comedy that’s unlike anything else on the Fringe. David Pollock

COMEDY

Bronwyn Kuss: Sounds Good ★★★

Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17) until 25 August

Dry and cynical, Bronwyn Kuss is also sufficiently, conspiratorially charming enough to align the audience with her more unpalatable thoughts, such as wishing disaster on her girlfriend's high-flying ex and cheerfully mocking the obviously mentally ill teacher who once tartly informed her that she was destined for a sad life. To be fair to the matter-of-fact Australian comic, both are extreme examples that are easy to get on board with. And she offers up plenty of her childhood embarrassments and insecurities for mitigation and context, not least her relationship with her dad, which rather redefines the father-daughter bond.

For all her abrasiveness, Kuss has, to her great surprise, only been called the C-word once in her life. And she hangs her Fringe hour on a core anecdote, when she recalls being out, walking her dogs with her girlfriend, when the pair came across a woman's body by the side of the road. It's a tale she returns to periodically, as she fills in her backstory, from being a receptionist at a sexual health clinic in Edinburgh, privy to plenty of the juiciest gossip, to a recipient of “dick pics”, with one particular individual's creativity rewarded with featuring in the show. A strong storyteller with an unvarnished attitude, Kuss is easy to warm to. Jay Richardson

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COMEDY

Jason John Whitehead: Clubbed ★★★

Hoots @ the Apex (Venue 108) until 26 August

JJ gets two applause breaks. Now, in comedy, that is impressive. He has been around a bit, has JJ. Born in Canada, lived 17 years in the UK and then moved to America. But his accent has not changed and his delivery is still that of a cheerful, friendly stoner. His shows are always fun and chilled and pretty much nothing can go wrong because nothing brings him down – not three years living in Tollcross, not prostate examinations, not the opioid crisis in America … not even, horrific as it is, American chocolate. JJ riffs off our suggestions as to what his biggest culture shock might have been on moving to the US. I will let him tell you what it actually was, but it comes both as a surprise and with a charming life lesson attached.

Less charming but totally hilarious and very well received by parents in the room are his suggestions for child management. His own parents are in the audience today and his father even contributes a “bonus joke”, creating a unique moment of funny at the Fringe. One word of warning: according to many websites, it seems that JJ might be a robot. Kate Copstick

COMEDY

Eddy Hare: This One's On Me ★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 25 August

Eddy Hare comes across as the brooding one in his double act Crizards. And so it is in his solo debut, an appealing hour of personal anecdotes, delivered in an often morose deadpan and with a gentle touch of absurdity. Preoccupied with the bald spot that has persecuted him since youth, it's one of the twin pillars of his personality, along with being an uncle to two young nieces. Adopting unreasonable stances, such as being jealous of their freedom but elevating uncledom to a position of responsibility on a par with parenthood, he teases entertaining whimsy out of these slightly skewed perspectives.

When he speaks, semi-fondly, of his own three, deceased uncles, it similarly exists in a vague hinterland of what sounds like genuine family backstory with heightened elements added. Occasionally, there are allusions to his mental health struggles. And he's clearly undergoing some existential wobbles, the bald spot and his difficulties with birthday parties, ever-present and recurring manifestations of his anxiety.

A sensitive soul, his masculinity is challenged by the feminist icons turned into opponents on his chess app. And he veers between inspired, out-the-box thinker and naïve idiot, bypassing his sullen countenance with songs expressing his hopes and fears. Jay Richardson

COMEDY

Mhairi Black: Politics Isn’t For Me ★★★

Gilded Balloon at the Museum (Venue 64) until 25 August

Aged 20, peachy-keen politics graduate Mhairi Black landed her dream job but ultimately she found her workplace to be archaic, inflexible, claustrophobic and resistant to progress, although she did find some of her workmates to be unexpectedly endearing and got some surprising jollies along the way. Her role? The honourable Member of Parliament for Paisley and Renfrewshire South at Westminster.

Mhairi Black in Politics Isn't For Me | Steve Ullathorne

Now she’s got the hell out of Dodge, Black presents a look back at her time as the Baby of the House. She’s not afraid to go there with cracks about Huw Edwards and Alex Salmond but beyond the early part of the show where she distils some of her personal and family background this is a relatively sober hour where she opens up the parliamentary machine and points out its workings for good or ill.

There is some affection for Westminster, for the history of the building, and its staff, even for some of the pomp and ceremony. Although she comes to bury not to praise, she is not averse to some gleeful gossip on Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ian Paisley Jr and is such an accomplished storyteller that her stand-up debut feels as much a fascinating walking tour through the corridors of power as a takedown of its processes and culture. Fiona Shepherd