Hannah Gadsby was the best-reviewed show of the Fringe | Here's the full top ten

Hannah Gadsby was the best-reviewed show of the Fringe

Here's the full top ten

Hannah Gadsby’s award-winning Nanette was the best-reviewed comedy show at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

That’s the verdict of The List magazine, which collated reviews from sources, including The Guardian, The Skinny, Chortle and its own critics.

Gadsby’s emotive show received the best critical reaction from across the whole Fringe, not just the comedy section, and went on to take the the lastminute.com Edinburgh Comedy Award, sharing the honours with John Robins.

However, his show, The Darkness of John Robins, about the aftermath of a break-up, only made 46th place on The List’s list.

In fact, none of the other Edinburgh Comedy Award nominees made this magazine’s top ten, nor any of the newcomer shortlist, save for Lauren Pattison.

The chart does not appear to take account of how many reviews each show received, nor the sources of the review. 

For example, Jay Lafferty at No 4 seems to have been reviewed by only four publications, with four stars from The Scotsman and Funny Women and five from One4Review and Edinburgh Festival. Whereas Robins got four stars across the board of the most respected publications, such as The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The London Evening Standard, Chortle, The List itself and The Scotsman.

The List admitted their top ten was ‘an imperfect system’ – but said: ’It provides a useful guide to the consensus hits of the festival.’

Here they are:

1. Hannah Gadsby – Nanette

2. The Boy With Tape On His Face is Tape Face

3. Paul Sinha: Shout Out to My Ex

4. Foil, Arms and Hog: Oink

5. Jay Lafferty: Besom

6. Phil Nichol: Your Wrong

7. Tom Ballard: Problematic

8. Lauren Pattison: Lady Muck

9. Sarah Kendall: One-Seventeen

10. Rose Matafeo: Sassy Best Friend

Published: 2 Sep 2017

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