The Wrinklies: meet the Edinburgh Fringe comedians embracing old age

Jeff Stark: Old Fart Gassing | Pic: Contributed

This year's August in Edinburgh is up to its laughing gear in divergence. If it is not your neurons that are divergent then it is your less cerebral bits. But for any despairing, straight, white, neuronormative comics out there, there is one minority group that waits for you, if you are good and determined enough. And they are on the rise. The Wrinklies.

Mark Thomas, known as The Godfather of Political Comedy, has been raging against the machine for decades. He raged most of all, quite recently, when he was given a round of applause at a gig, for being 61. But a few decades on a comic can do no harm. Most of the heavy hitting political comics will never be asked for ID in a bar again. Just do not patronise them.

Thomas is a youngster compared to 81 year old Jeff Stark, who is making his Fringe debut this year. Does he remember why he started? “Same reason all comedians start.” he says. “Desperate and pathetic need for mass love. The risk is huge so I think it is a mild form of mental illness.”

His “need” took him to the newly opened Comedy Store in 1979. For younger readers, that was just under 20 years before Social Media. “My first gig went okay. Didn't get gonged off so I thought I'd give it another go. Thatcher-bashing would always get an audience onside, though mostly with a cheer rather than a laugh. Alexei Sayle was the compere and he would introduce me as 'Jeff Stark, who works at Saatchi & Saatchi.' Many comics got booed off but I was the only one who got booed on.”

Jeff became Creative Director of the aforementioned Saatchi & Saatchi, which was seriously impressive, but temporarily killed his stand-up career. “Audiences don't want to hear how successful you are.” he says. “Failure is what gets them onside.”

Like so much else about the generation, Boomer comedy loses nothing over the years. It just matures like wine, or, arguably, cheese. Talking of which, the latest version of 66-year-old Bobby Davro (stick yer Live at the Apollo, he’s done Live at the Palladium) is probably the riskiest comic on the Fringe this year. “Just don’t cancel me,” he says. “If you don't like the jokes, just walk out”.

Bobby Davro: Everything is Funny... If You Can Laugh at It | Pic: Contributed

The legend that is Attila The Stockbroker, meanwhile, says he is “incomparably” better than he was 40 years ago. “I started off as a pretty one-dimensional angry young ranting poet: I’m now a multidimensional angry old one. Since everything that we, and the generation above us, worked so hard to create is now being destroyed before our eyes, it is hardly surprising that I am even MORE angry than I was. But I now have a lot of intensely personal material too. I need to go to bed more often, that’s all.”

Equally passionately political, Ivor Dembina is 73 and part of the bricks of true alternative comedy in the UK, starting the Fringe's first dedicated stand up venue Comedy Boom in 1987. He began performing because “I thought I was funnier than many of the acts I employed. Then I went solo because as a club comic I was lousy. My heart wasn't in being part of a forgettable parade.”

Dembina is as opinionated as ever, but is he funnier, I ask? “Not funnier, just more experienced.”

I suggest that being older makes it easier to get away with more outrageous material. “Material doesn't need to be outrageous,” he says, “merely truthful. Getting old is the only true outrage. Try it.”

So what has changed for Dembina over the decades? “Nothing.” he says. “If people don't laugh, it's still their fault.”

The Perky to Dembina's Pinky (as I have long thought of them) is Andy Zapp. A mere 63, Zapp always enjoyed making people laugh. “I always wanted to try my hand at it,” he says. “I had my moments. Yes, I have got better and the more I do it, the better I get. I carry more authenticity now, more comedic gravitas. I do get it wrong sometimes, although I try to make 'outrageous' fun. But I'm reverse ageist. It's nice embarrassing Gen Zs.”

I have always felt that age lends laissez-faire especially to female comics. The deliciously lewd-lipped Miriam Margolyes – 83 and not strictly a comedian, but far funnier than many – has the self knowledge that can only come with years. “I am very confident that I am a good person, so I think it is allowed for me to say c*** every now and again,” she says.

Fringe favourite Jojo Sutherland, in the wake of her Growing Old Disgracefully success, is proudly “older and more disgraceful” this year according to her show description, and down on PBH's Free Fringe, a trio of ladies rich in life experience share an hour to prove they’ve — as their show’s title states — Still Got It! In their comedy hour Lissi Field (73), Georgia Thorpe (64) and Derya Yildirim(59) offer a view from being a Turkish lawyer dealing in sexual violence cases, a Greek emotional wellbeing counsellor who spent much of her life in the closet, and an ex-teacher experimenting with political satire.

Absolutely no one I speak to sees age as in any way a drawback.

“I love being the age I am.” says Lissi Field. “I am at the most confident that I have ever been, and want to make the most of that.”

As Dembina says, “If you find comedy ageist, try disco.”

Jeff Stark thinks that age on a comic is a bit of a superpower. Too many are avoiding issue-driven material in case they get cancelled, he says. Me? I'm 81. If I got cancelled I wouldn't even notice so I'm going to wade right in.”

Jeff Stark: Old Fart Gassing, Greenside @ George Street, 8.55pm, 12-24 August; Bobby Davro: Everything is Funny... If You Can Laugh at It, Frankenstein Pub, 9pm, until 25 August; Attila the Stockbroker: 14 Days, 14 Completely Different Shows, PBH's Free Fringe @ Bannermans, various times, 5-18 August; Sex and Drugs and Getting Old (with Andy Zapp), Laughing Horse@ Eastside, 4.55pm, until 25 August; Ivor Dembina: Millwall Jew, Laughing Horse @ Bar 50, 2.15pm, until 25 August; Ivor Dembina: Nineteen Ninety Four, Laughing Horse @ Dragonfly, 5.45pm, until 25 August; Margolyes & Dickens: The Best Bits, Pleasance at EICC, 4pm, 7-15 August; JoJo Sutherland: I Wish You Were My Mum (Careful What You Wish For), The Stand Comedy Club, 11.30am, until 26 August; Still Got It!, PBH's Free Fringe @ Pilgrim, 3.15pm, 5-25 August