2025 FPC Fringe Picks

Premise: A live show from the hit podcast. Taylor Glenn delivers pieces of a true crime puzzle while necking bottles of cava, allowing Hannah George and special guests to put it all together.

Of note: Despite being Sunday and nearly the end of Fringe with strong audience hangover vibes, Taylor is whip sharp to fill a silence, an impressive skill no doubt honed over the podcast’s 300+ episodes.

Highlight: when Hannah realized her first crush may have been the mustachioed cat burglar in “that one episode of the Simpsons” perhaps resulting in her mustachioed husband.

Lowlight: Guest standup comic Emma Doran was 10 minutes late, she bolted down the aisle with enough speed to win back the audience and was charming as hell but the banter remained on the sleepy side - blame Sunday if you want.

Gender watch: Five men scurried out after a couple vagina jokes and a critique of truck balls. I wonder what they drive.

Premise: A pointed criticism of an emerging toxic culture of “meek” masculinity which champions self-actualization in the form of tracking apps and power naps a la tech geek giants Musk and Bezos, disguised as a guy in fluorescent spandex tickling the synth.

Of note: Smoke machines, bird themes, manufactured accents and male sex worker vibes.

Highlight: That really satisfying midpoint moment when I realized, “Aha, this isn’t just a weird egomaniacal fever dream: there is clever depth here.”

Lowlight: I couldn’t decide whether ALL of the misleading bells, whistles, subplots and smoking gun (spoiler alert) served the show or just carried attention spans? But I’m willing to believe my confusion was its brilliance?

Gender watch: One man left mid-show, but maybe he got stuck in the bathroom. The door was tricky.

Premise: All-female improv trio Quirks & Foibles host family friendly Bingo, for which every random draw results in them having to do the chosen sketch - there must be dozens in their arsenal.

Of note: There is zero dead air in this show, these ladies run a tight finishing-each other’s-sentences-caliber ship – no small feat in live comedy.

Highlight: When the witch from Hansel and Gretel lured a child from the third row by laying a row of candy to the stage.

Lowlight: No Bingo wins for me.

Gender watch: Yes this show is for families. Yes it is a slapstick sausage tucked into a Bingo bun. But this show knows exactly what it is and what it does, it does meticulously well. Nobody left. Fun was had by all.

Premise: Gary Starr interprets classical literature as the scantily clad Penguin books mascot

Of note: Smoke machines, bird themes, manufactured accents and male sex worker vibes…

Highlight: Being tricked into laughing and participating in everything you’d expect to see at a kink club.

Lowlight: Being tricked into laughing and participating in everything you’d expect to see at a kink club.

Gender watch: Nobody left. Quite the opposite: at least three grown men hugged the nude host, about a hundred touched him as he crowd surfed, and one ran onstage naked himself (but he was French). I’ve never seen so many men and women laugh so consistently over one human’s exhibitionism, and so for that reason hats and pants off to Gary for his achievement.

Premise: Abbie Murphy weaves an hour of nostalgic standup, longing for simpler days of transactional romance, effortless joy and the sick beats of the noughties. 

Of note: Had I not been in the front row, my Shazam would have been on the whole time.

Highlight: A throwback diary entry full of the kind of wit and wisdom your younger self wants to believe your older self will one day have – but it’s clear Abbie has been wildly consistent her whole life.

Lowlight: She’s still working on the ending, people!

Gender watch: We were 99% millennial women and no deserters.

Premise: Through musical comedy, powerpoint presentations and live readings of her childhood diary, Jodie Sloan digests the aftermath of her satirical video, “Is she hot?” which was accidentally pushed by TikTok to millions of men with her photo several years ago, resulting in a hailstorm of negging and worse. 

Of note: Jodie is a polymath, not just a pretty face.

Highlight: This uncut gem of a show ranges fully from hilariousness to tears, thanks to a deceptively complex heartbeat beneath Jodie’s folksy popstar veneer. She’s worth a serious look by audiences and commissioners alike.

Lowlight: One man began to heckle Jodie mid-show, telling her to speed up her next song – he’d heard it before, no doubt because his wife had dragged him here for a second time with another couple.

Gender watch: Would that man have left if his wife and their well-behaved friends hadn’t been seated beside him? Make note, there is power in peer pressure.

Premise: We were taken through the first three (elastic) minutes of 17 possible shows the writer/performer had considered for her Edinburgh debut. What sounds like a shallow and disjointed premise is actually the cover story for an ingenious exercise in structural originality that pulls these seemingly disparate parts into an affecting whole when the deeply personal thematic link is revealed.

Of note: Audience participation was required, but it was so silly and fun that absolutely no one minded.

Highlight: As a David Sedaris fan, I loved that Wambaugh used his essayist style for one of her openings to give her licence to slip into sad and even traumatic personal revelation without compromising the overall comedic tone of the show.

Lowlight: The first two 3-minute openings seemed a little gauche and made me nervous, I worried what the next 54 minutes would be like.

Gender watch: The hidden theme, I won’t spoil it, could have been a big red flag for men in the audience. Wambaugh deals with this head on and her wit and lightness of touch won them over.  Nobody walked out or fainted.