How Edinburgh Fringe critics flocked to black comedians

Number-crunching the 2025 festival

Black comedians received more than three times as many reviews than other acts at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe on average, new research has found.

They attracted an median of 10.5 reviews each compared to three for Asian and white acts. The figure was also a huge jump on 2024, when black acts received an average of three reviews each, in line with white comics.

The results may come as a surprise given the festival skews heavily towards white performers – but the fact there were fewer black acts meant they stood out more, especially given the number of relatively high-profile names.

Sam

Stand-up Sam See, above, who compiled the statistics, said: ‘The reason is genuinely very simple. It is, if you show up, you get more.

‘In 2024, if we're looking at some of the bigger name black acts that were at the Edinburgh Fringe, in terms of the newcomers to the UK scene, we had Kemah Bob and Josephine Lacey. When we looked at the American imports, we had Demi Adejuyigbe.

‘But in 2025, we had a huge jump. You had Sharon Wanhoji, Ayo Adenekan, Ayoade Bamgboye (pictured, top), We also had from America Sam Jay, Zainab Johnson, Desiree Burch, from the UK staples Toussaint Douglass, Sikisa, Thanya Moore, Emmanuel Sonubi – that's more black acts.

‘So very simple… it's just based on who shows up that year. ‘It’s not some weird conspiracy, it’s not some massive push from certain groups. I wish it was more controversial than that, but sometimes facts are boring.'

Bamgboye – who won the best newcomer gong at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards before landing a place in the cast of Saturday Night Live UK – was the best-reviewed black comedian, according to previously published analysis by the British Comedy Guide, but was only No23 overall.

See used data from that website to compile detailed analysis of reviews from solo comedy shows at the 2025 Fringe, sliced in different ways.

Among his findings are:

The 929 solo comedy acts considered attracted a total of 2,614 reviews. The mean star rating was 3.87 – and almost 70 per cent of reviews were four stars or greater.
Women represent 35 per cent of solo comedy shows, with 326 comedians. Men represented 62 per cent (572 acts) with 31 non-binary performers making up the other 3 per cent.
Female acts are more likely to be reviewed. Two-thirds of female and non-binary comics (65 per cent in each case) got at least one review compared to 56 per cent of men.
And women were marginally more likely to get a better review, with a mean of 3.9 stars compared to men’s 3.8.
More than three-quarters of black acts got at least one review (76 per cent), compared to 60 per cent of white acts and 55 per cent of Asian acts.
White comedians averaged 3.88 stars, black acts 3.82, Asians 3.78.
Queer acts are more likely to be reviewed than straight ones – with 65 per cent of shows compared to 58 per cent. But orientation made no difference
And 78 per cent of neurodiverse comedians got at least one review.
The best sites to be in to guarantee a review are Assembly Roxy and Udderbelly George Square. Every show here got at least one review.
Pleasance Courtyard was the place critics liked most, with 626 reviews from that venue – well ahead of the next nearest rival, Monkey Barrel, which racked up 248 reviews.
On average, a Pleasance Courtyard act got nine reviews, 8.5 for Pleasance Dome and eight at Monkey Barrel.
But shows at Just The Tonic Legends got the highest ratings – an average of 4.25 stars – followed by The Tron at 4.2. However only five reviews were filed from each venue.
While there were more acts and more published reviews compared to 2024, the exact same number of acts got reviewed – ‘which means the reviews, although more, were not spread out over more acts’.
Free shows ‘strengthened’ with more reviews and better scores on average, which See attributed to the One4Review website targeting more shows from that sector, and the ISH comedy awards drawing more focus away from the big venues.
The most prolific reviewer was Jay Richardson, who writes across a range of publications with 124 reviews of solo acts and an average star rating of 3.4, followed by Chortle’s Steve Bennett with 93 shows and an average of 3.38 stars.
Mariah Girouard of a site called European Comedy was the most generous reviewer, averaging 4.85 stars over the ten reviews she wrote.
One4Review was the most prolific reviewer of solo comedians with 273, followed by Edfringe Review at 168 (although they publish two reviews of each show in the so that represents 84 shows) then Chortle at 153.