The Big Comedy Roadshow, Barrfields Theatre, Largs. Saturday 24th May 2025

When the best thing about a night out is the drive home, you know you've not had a good time.

I had such high hopes for this show. It featured a couple of established local acts, two others with high-profile TV experience, and a superb upcoming comedian. Even with Liam Withnail dropping out, Chris Forbes should have been a good replacement. 

A quick check of ticket availability the day before showed 50+ still available. Fifty tickets wouldn't be much of a gap, though, given the room capacity was 440. 

The portents were not good, though. When I arrived at the venue, I found plenty of parking spaces available. Inside, the front-of-house staff announced that the ticketed reserved seating had been suspended as they had had to rearrange the room into tables. The intention was to give the place a club vibe, but this was going to be difficult given the critically low sales. There were maybe only fifty punters in attendance.  

The staff wanted us to fill up the front trestle tables first, but we ignored that suggestion, leaving the latecomers and the Gen-Zs to sit there. The way the seats had been arranged perpendicularly to the stage felt too much like a work conference, with half the room sitting with their backs to the speaker, in this case, the comedian. It might work for bingo, but not for comedy.  

Chris Forbes kicked off the evening as host, conducting some low-key audience work to establish where people were from (local mainly, with a few from England and one from Wales). The interactions were warm but rarely comedic. I don't know if he used any prepared material before he brought on Raymond Mearns.

Raymond is an established comic who is more intelligent than he appears to be, not that it shows often. He ploughed through his material about young people not talking to one another, likely leading to an extinction-level crisis, despite the lukewarm reaction from the crowd. He did okay in the circumstances.

Desiree Burch was up next. The inaccuracies in her material killed my enjoyment of it: Pointless contestants cannot win only £800—the prize money starts at £1000. She should know this as she was Xander's sidekick for ten shows. She complained about how thick Blankety Blank contestants are, then told a story about this one girl who struggled to come up with a famous Scotsman, despite hints from the celebrities. The problem here was Rod "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" Stewart is not Scottish. So, who's the idiot? Her suggestion that the success of ABBA Voyage was due to the band being dead finished me off (not in a sex act way). She rescued it a bit at the end with her bald, bearded Greek boyfriend material, but it was too little, too late. I felt she was not gig-fit. She spoke fast but stumbled occasionally over the words. 

Jin Hao Li didn't have that problem. His delivery is deliberately slow. His material is brilliant, full of comical misdirection, so even though I was familiar with the routines and could recite the lines as he spoke them, I still enjoyed his performance. He giggled more than usual, which was odd for him, as he's usually so controlled. 

The headliner, Jayde Adams, died on her arse. Her act was flabby with very few jokes. Instead, she went on and on about being on Strictly (it was 2022), going viral and being ever so popular. She berated us for not laughing at her 'good' jokes, complained that she hadn't done much standup because she'd been too busy with her successful career, then read out a prepared speech about the patriarchy trying to control women with body shaming and that by owning her fatness, she had become immune to their powers. The best bit was the background music, the young lesbian from the Gen Z table played (Luke Skywalker's theme from Star Wars: A New Hope) to accompany the speech. 

I was especially disappointed in Jayde, because I'd heard she could be so good. 

The Gilded Balloon branded the previous tour as the Big Fab Comedy Show. They definitely were right to lose the Fab tonight.

Ticket Price  2 x £23 plus Booking Fee £3.58 = £49.58 from Ticket Source Ltd

The original tour graphic

Edinburgh Fringe: Trip One - Melanie Bracewell, Jin Hao Li & Elf Lyons. Monday 5th August, 2024

Our first trip to this year's Edinburgh Fringe was nearly derailed by industrial action. Our train would have brought us back to Glasgow, but because of the revised timetable, we would have missed the last one back to Johnstone. So, plan B involved a drive to the Ingleston Park and Ride and then taking the tram into the city. This was the cheapest option (other than risking a parking ticket). 

As we left Paisley, the weather was wet and drizzly, and it only got wetter. The sat nav took us to Silverburn to join the M74 and then bypassed the M8, continuing on until we reached the M73, only later joining the M8. By then, the surface water was horrendous, and every flare of brake lights in front of me triggered a pedal slam from me, too, because I couldn't see what lay beyond. Eventually, the rain thinned, and the clouds lightened, so by the time we reached the Park and Ride, it was dry. And warm. Seriously warm. I had three layers on, two of which were unnecessary. We bought the tram tickets at the machine (the kiosk closed at 3.30pm, though the assistant was still sitting there scrolling on her phone). 

The tram trip was way more relaxing than the drive. However, travelling on a 'train on the road' did feel a bit weird, passing shops and pedestrians instead of railway embarkments and the backs of buildings. We got off at St Andrew's Square and made our way to the Pleasance, the venue for all of today's shows.

Apart from the unexpected heat, the first thing that struck me was the number of names on the show listing boards that I'd never heard of. I used to think I was quite comedy-savvy, but I had no clue who most of these people were. It also felt quieter, but then I remembered it was Monday. 

The benches in the Courtyard are a good place to people-watch. We noticed Alan Davies, Nina Conti, and Chloe Petts passing by. I also noticed that the number of young women not wearing bras seems to have shot up since I was a young lad. This is a fashion statement I applaud, but I didn't know where to look. So perhaps I missed other celebrities wandering by as I distracted myself on my phone, trying to avoid a dirty look or slap (from them and my wife). 

Melanie Bracewell - Attack of the Melanie Bracewell
17.50 Baby Grand, Pleasance Courtyard 

The first show we took was at the Baby Grand. This venue is located in an alley outside the courtyard, accessed further down the road. It's essentially a very hot container box with power, seats, and lighting.  Earlier that day, I'd received an email from Fringe Customer Services warning me that the show description for Melanie Bracewell's "Attack of the Melanie Bracewell" had changed, now including 'Swearing, Adult Content and Mild Audience Participation'. 

Melanie is a story-telling comedian from New Zealand (friends with Urzilla Carlson, it turns out, as she made a couple of guest appearances on video). This show's story is about Melanie's need to recover her missing earpods, which she believes have been stolen. As you'd expect from any hour-long show, it's not a simple tale, with lots of twists and turns. The humour is likeable, with most of the craft coming from the structure rather than the wordplay. 

It was okay. A pleasant appetizer.

Ticket Price: £12 (2for1)

Jin Hao Li - Swimming in a Submarine
19.10 Below, Pleasance Courtyard.

This is Jin Hao Li's debut hour at Edinburgh. He's Chinese-born, Singapore-raised, and educated at St Andrews (or Standrews, as he called it). He first came to my attention at the BBC New Comedy Awards in 2023. I loved his softly spoken wordplay, creatively using pauses for misdirection. His surreal vision was engaging. I had high expectations for this show.   

Which, unfortunately, it didn't meet. 

It still felt like a work in progress. It was good, but some bits missed the mark. A good director could shape this into something better, as the writing is brilliant, and his audience control is fantastic. He can still save it, but for me, it didn't quite hit the top marks I was expecting.

He did make my wife jump, though, during his bit about ghosts. That was a first. I used to think she lacked an autonomic nervous system as she never falls for any jump scares in the movies, whereas I always do.

Ticket Price: £12 (2for1) 

Elf Lyons - Horses
21.20, Above, Pleasance Courtyard
2for1 £15

Elf Lyons is a performer I've wanted to see in person for a long time. I had tickets for her Raven show at the Glasgow Stand but contracted Covid and had to cancel. I had no foreknowledge about this year's show, Horses, except the title and that it was "highly regarded". 

When the time came to enter the venue, she greeted us at the theatre door. She was tall, barefoot, wearing a leotard and a colourful, diamond-shaped waistcoat. She had grease paint on her upper face and forehead and lipstick reminiscent of a mime. She looked clownish, and that was the point. She was setting a tone.

The show itself is magnificent. She told us from the off that she was going to bring a horse onto the stage, and she did - in our minds. She is a fantastic performer, using movement to build and create her imaginary worlds. She engages us with playful but safe audience interaction. The subject matter can go quite dark (I've never felt an audience feel so nervous about an imaginary old horse facing an imaginary farmer's imaginary gun). She's also clever in the way she subverts the form, throwing out funnies like a muck spreader. Between scenes, she mimes the words playing on a backing track, involving conversations with her family members, which lays the foundation for the show's underlying theme. 

The whole show ties up beautifully at the end, and the message (SPOILER!): it's okay to play, even if we forgot how to when we grew up. We can all still be horses, just like some of the bolder audience members at the end—beautiful, pert young colts and fillies who gently cantered about the stage unbridled. (Yeah, sorry, I should have looked away). 

 

The trip home was horrendous, with multiple M8 closures at locations I'd never driven through before. Having to get the tram back to the car didn't help either, so we didn't reach home until 12:40 a.m. It was worth it, though, just to catch 'Horses'. 

All tickets were purchased from EdFringe.com. The booking fee was capped at £5.

She looks exactly the same in person

Addendum: Elf Lyons wins two awards: The Comedians Choice Award 2024   and the ISH Edinburgh Comedy Award 2024