Stamptown Comedy Night - Edinburgh Fringe Festival (UK)

Reviewed by Justin Clarke

Pleasance Courtyard - Forth

Aug 12, 17-19, 24-26

1 hour 30 minutes

Suitability: 18+ (Restriction)

Country: United States

Group: Stamptown Proudly Presents

Warnings and additional info: This show may contain audience participation, potentially triggering themes, nudity, scenes of a sexual nature, violence and sexual violence, strobe lighting, swearing, loud music, gunshot noise and haze.

Tickets: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/stamptown-comedy-night

5 STARS

- This isn't theatre, this is church for comedy. Finish your Ed Fringe night with it! -

Nothing, and I mean nothing, can prepare you for the madness that is Stamptown Comedy Night at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Warming up the audience is Dylan and the Dylans on roller skates and morphsuits, air drumming and skating to Jason Derulo’s “Ridin’ Solo”, people are standing, dancing, screaming. The show hasn’t even started!

Hosted by the insanely quick witted, Jack Tucker (Jack Tucker Comedy Stand Up Hour), the audience are less-than-gently led through a variety of acts, ranging from the absurd, to the jaw-dropping, stand-up comedy (Martin Urbano: Apology Comeback Tour), and the just plain fucking weird. The star of the show throughout has to be Tucker and his ability to interact with the audience, makes us laugh at and with both ourselves and individual audience members. Christian, if you’re reading this, bless you.

Tucker arms himself with a thick New York accent, a dishevelled look, missing shoes and a slightly busted microphone. Alongside the numerous sound effects and lighting pre-loaded into the board, the whole show could have just been the back and forth between Tucker, the audience and the swift button pressing of the operators. Imagine cheesy talk-back American radio filled with fart and poop noises, sad trombones and gunshot noises, and that’s Stamptown. It’s clowning at its absolute finest.

Co-hosted by Josh Glanc, the duo is enhanced. Glanc has a stupidity and wit to him with a too-tight t-shirt and absurd South American accent whose main shtick is to eagerly hear the sound effect of an eagle and shuffle-dance off stage whenever a spotlight hits. It’s just beautiful.

The lines between reality and fiction are blurred throughout Stamptown with everyone seeming to be in on the fun. Stage hands move swiftly on and offstage to move a microphone stand one inch, and then enter to move it back. The venue manager has a mental breakdown when forgetting to give the show warnings. An act doesn’t show to play the piano, and instead we’re treated to an impromptu (and planned) audience member (who turns out to be original SIX member Annabel Marlow) enters to smash out a song.

By the end of the show, you’re exhausted from the sheer hilarity and frivolity involved, not to mention the stamina of those involved. Futuristic sex robots (Courtney Pauroso: Vanessa 5000), manic jugglers, multiple dead morphsuited men, hula hooping insanity, and ridiculous clowning fills your late evening. Just be prepared to be heckled lest you leave for the bathroom at any stage of the night, Tucker is onto you!

This isn’t theatre, this is church for comedy.