Have you ever wondered how sea creatures must feel about the destruction of their ecosystems? Well, Zoë Bullock’s Gracie and the Start of the End of The World (Again) might just answer that question. It’s a creative and funny story that balances the humour and devastating throughout.

Death and the afterlife are quite unlikely topics or sources of humour for a stand-up comedy show, just from the juxtaposition alone. Rich Spalding’s debut hour Gather Your Skeletons not only proves that this is a false premise - or at least the exception to the rule - throughout the rest of the hour, that is  full to the brim of good-natured humour and amusement. 

Kemah Bob’s Miss Fortunate is a romantic’s journey into reality, that plays with different established norms and tropes to create a completely unique experience for us as an audience. This is also just a very fun - if slightly concerning- high-energy show where Bob uses different forms of comedy in order to craft this wild narrative.

Shiny is Steve Bugeja’s latest offering to the comedy world at the altar of the Edinburgh Fringe. The show adopts on a linear structure as he takes us on a journey through his school days, comedy career to achieving his dream of writing a sitcom. Through all of this, Bugeja engages in a commentary about the connections that we make between self-worth, career and achievements, critiquing the nightmarescape that we create for ourselves. It’s a relatable hour as we follow him down this path of self-reflection that speaks to a larger sociological and cultural issues and analyses. It gets to a point where we can’t help considering when we’ve had a similar experience, when - to use Bugeja’s terminology - we’ve felt shiny or matte. 

Dan Tiernan returns to the Fringe with his tricky second hour, Stomp, once more terrorising audiences with his dark and forthright humour and the occasional twisted punchline.