There’s plenty to be seen at the Free Fringes this year- here’s just a couple of top tips…
Fil Milton… Is A One-Line Comedian, Pizza Geeks
If you like a good pun, or even a bad one, Fil Milton has them in spades. Fil has recently hit the headlines by winning the Cheez-It Cheeziest Joke Award, so it’s with great anticipation that I take my seat in the nerdy surroundings of Pizza Geeks.
It’s a show that very much does what it says on the tin: an impressive onslaught of one-liners and as Fil says himself, if you don’t like one there’ll be another one along soon. With a small audience that on the day I went mainly consisted of Fil’s pals, it was still an utter joy; watching him pretend they were people he’d never met was funny in itself!
The material ranged from the safe groan-worthy puns to slightly edgier ones, but never stepped over the line into malice. I was particularly pleased to hear jokes where trans women weren’t ridiculed – and I’m also looking forward to hearing the joke Fil put together with our suggestions at next year’s show!
Fil Milton is a great way to spend an hour away from the bustle of the city centre.
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Fil Milton… Is A One-Line Comedian is at Pizza Geeks Easter Road from Aug 22-30 at 15:40
Seymour Mace’s Other Show! Alchemist George Street
North-East comedy veteran Seymour Mace offers a second show where chaos reigns and anything goes. Star of Ideal and Hebburn and a regular on the stand-up circuit, Mace has a very different hour to his ‘Covered In Stickers’ in the tiny Alchemist Garret; he promises whatever pals he can rope into chatting, possibly games, and the unhinged contents of his notebook. It feels like the ideal show for the end of the Fringe; even the blurb declares ‘It’s the last week! We’re all f*cked!’
I confess I wasn’t expecting alt-comedy legend Simon Munnery to stroll in accompanied by his German Shepherd Tazzie, who wandered around greeting us before settling down to doze through the madness! There’s a relaxed chat show vibe to proceedings; the pair discuss the lack of female Wombles, what stews Seymour would serve at his food truck, and Simon offers a wild tale of the legendary Malcolm Hardee at Glastonbury with some ill-advised application of luminous paint…
Despite the sparse crowd everyone’s up for taking part in a chat, although Seymour’s solar system kit never did get fully assembled, and we never reached a conclusion on whether dogs have a separate heaven because of human allergies. This kind of unhinged patter is absolutely ideal for the madness that is week three.
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Seymour Mace’s Other Show is at Alchemist George Street from Aug 24-30 at 14:45