A slightly belated record of my last day in Edinburgh this year. I lined up a strong evening of comedy for myself, starting with Jamie Kilstein, a young American comic doing his first full Fringe, after coming over for a few days last year.

His anti-religious style (the show is called “There is no God and thats Okay”) is not in itself a new thing, but his charm, wit and ability to contruct genuinely strong arguments in response to the very real bigotry he has first hand experience of back home in the Mid-West means that he has plenty to bring to the party. He also has a rhythm to some of his speech which I really enjoy – he’s also a poet so he obviously has a gift for metre which is something Id love to see him develop further.

Next to Nick Doody who shares some strong views on religion (this is the man who Bill Hicks had as support on his UK tour). I was possibly affected by seeing two similar shows close together, but I didnt feel Nick’s show hung so well together, tho there were some very enjoyable bits – including a dramatic film opening and ending with a live versionof Teddy Bear’s Picnic (following on from a a good bit about Mohammed Bear) with added violence.

It was a dash to see John Gordillo from there and I missed the first few minutes, so John was already in full flow when I arrived. He’s a very gentle and mild mannered man so it was exciting to see him showing great passion by channelling the indignant fury of his Father, a man brought up in Spain under Franco and who’s wife died leaving him to bring up the young John alone in London. John has a great comic pedigree having been a successful act a while ago before concentrating on other projects such as writing, television and also directing shows for the Reginald D Hunter and Eddie Izzard. The thrust of the show is that extreme political opinions tend to be underlaid by personal emotional issues – a good point and strongly made.

Finally I caught Ian Stone’s show which is good solid set of fairly traditional stand up – the energy was a little low in the room as the audience wasnt huge, but he worked hard and kept everyone engaged and entertained throughout.

Stand Up Comedy

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