Matt Winning on the best and worst of the Edinburgh Fringe

Comedian Matt Winning is back at the Edinburgh Fringe with his climate-themed Solastalgia, in the theatre section of the programme. Here he shares what he can't get enough of at the festival, his most embarrassing Edinburgh experience and the worst thing about the Fringe. Apart from the cost of accommodation, obviously…

​Edinburgh binge

The best part of the festival is the comedy magicians. That is all I see every year. I try to see each and every one of them at least three times to try and figure out the tricks. I love the combination of comedy and magic because why not combine the world's two greatest art forms in one underwhelming spectacle?

 It's the excitement of it all. The white gloves, the top hat, the inappropriate comments to young women in the audience. They are pushing boundaries of what magic and sexually innuendo can be for an hour.  

Edinburgh cringe

Most of these involve recognising people's faces but not knowing their name or the context from which I know them. It's a full month of feeling like I've gone senile. Trying to place a face based on a 10-second conversation that I replay over and over again. 

How does that person know so much about me? Walking about paranoid. Taking a different route ever day in case I'm being followed. And then I eventually work it's just an audience member and I've told a story on stage. And it's bad because I'm not a well-known comedian so I don't have any excuse whatsoever. Only about 20 people know who I am and come to see all my shows but I can't remember a single one of their names.

 I'm just utterly crap at retaining certain information. I know the response to this question would benefit comedically from a specific example of a person who's name I've forgotten but I can't for the life of me remember one.

Edinburgh whinge

Now I know most people will say the cost of accommodation, but I'm actually staying with a friend because I'm Scottish, lived in Edinburgh for several years, and am generally liked by the host city, unlike you lot. 

And my good friend Andy who runs a small business selling a handy gadget called the Bebello Washer is putting me up for the month. Which is very kind. And the great thing with the Bebello Washer is that they both save time and money as a new parent. It's a real gamechanger. 

The actual worst thing about the Fringe? It is the relentless passing on time, whereby each year feels the exact same as the last one but that I am getting older, and the average age of performers is staying the same. 

I walk about all these young and vibrant people while going ‘Oh yeah, I did a great show in that bar a couple years ago’, and then realise it was actually a decade ago and that the bar is now a Vape shop,

And I bump into someone in George Square from back in the day, and we reminisce about being in the Chortle Student Comedy Awards final together which was now a lifetime ago, what a line-up that was, and I curse Chortle for giving me the sliver of confidence that led me to think this was a viable career. 

Why could you not just have told me I'm shit, Steve [Bennett, this site’s editor] like you've done ever since. So now I have to answer endless questions like, ‘Why do you keep leaving to go and do shows in Chelmsford, Daddy, and why don't we have enough money for a new sofa?’ ‘Well son, Steve Bennett fed me a crumb about 15 years ago and crumbs do not sustain.’ But thanks to the savings on accommodation, we can now afford one of those new Bebello washers.

• Matt Winning: Solastalgia is on at Assembly George Square Studios at 4.35pm for the duration of the Edinburgh Fringe.

• And the final of this year's Chortle Student Comedy Award is at Pleasance Dome at 10pm on Monday

Published: 9 Aug 2025