Fringe notes (1): Hard lessons in comedy at Edinburgh Fringe festival #edfringe

One of the amazing things at the world's biggest stage festival the Edinburgh Fringe is how many artists want to try their hand at the hardest genre. Comedy, with more than 1,100 acts, is the largest section out of the already overwhelming selection. How difficult, I inadvertently saw proved when I attended the first new show by feminist standup comedian and political activist Kate Smurthwaite on Saturday. Full of good cheer, as Kate had become one of my Fringe favourites in recent years with her sharp satire.

Painful

But this time she had decided not to act as herself, but to take on the role of a white young man dressed in a tight suit with all the stereotypically wrong ideas, especially about women. A pretty over the top creation that was fun and contrarian for a while but soon forced, with jokes that fell dead far too often. Painful to watch, Kate had to discover the failure of the concept on the spot and even visibly desperate to drop out of her role halfway through to assure the troubled audience that walking away was not an issue, but 'do it now, or stay on until the end'. Over 20 more performances ahead, how will that end? Yes, you can experience that too at the Fringe.

Stay yourself

Coincidentally, in that basement-like, skeleton-adorned hall of the Banshee Labyrinth, I subsequently saw a performance that demonstrated how it does work. Kane Brown grabbed the audience from start to finish with a cheeky and seemingly off-the-cuff improvised performance that (like Kate's) mostly made fun of machismo.

The main lesson seems to be: stay yourself (or pretend to be). In the process, Kane did not hesitate to grab several audience members with a disarmingly wide grin. That audience participation took an unexpectedly spectacular turn when a tall-blond, well-tongued woman who had walked in during the performance started to retort to him. What Kane had to say in his show was not very surprising in itself, but there was real hilarity and excitement in the room, the feeling of experiencing something.

Mr Bean

The latter is something that Spencer Jones (my favourite of the first Fringe weekend, and already awarded a prize last year) also manages to evoke with an utterly goofy performance that is a kind of ode to childlike silliness. Fun and amazement vie for precedence as he cobbles together the silliest stories and performances with silly dances, a mumbling voice (distant echo of Mr Bean) and suitcases full of stuff gathered together. But perhaps more autobio than it first appears. Free association in optima forma, culminating in a kind of public orchestra on stage and with the complaint that in life everything is just a mess.

Yes, that audience participation. That seems to be pretty much a regular thing, which is also uncomfortable at times. Especially not sitting in the front row. Briony Redman had a solution I didn't know yet. She handed out green, yellow and red stickers in advance with which everyone could indicate their feelings about that impending participation. Bit brave, of course.