Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Like many a political performer this Fringe, Radio 4 regular Elvis McGonagall has had some of the wind taken out of his sails by Labour’s ascent to power.

For Gin & Catatonic? – his first Fringe show since 2018 – is an exquisite takedown of Tory mendacity, incompetence, greed and privilege, delivered with linguistic savagery and a fire in his belly.  But it is also slightly redundant, a historic piece reminding us what we’ve ditched rather than an urgent swipe at those in power, although his invective still provides a cathartic public service.

It’s not that the satirical poet is especially inspired by Sir Keir Starmer – like much of the population, he greeted Labour victory with relief more than euphoria - but feels the ditching of the Conservatives is at least a baby step in the right direction.

Whatever the new government does, it’s hard to see them evoking the same visceral outrage that oozes through McGonagall’s best poems, furious, fast-paced diatribes that lacerate their targets with an onslaught of well-aimed insults.

Boris Johnson, of course, gets the most brutal treatment, a veritable thesaurus of words for shallow, amoral, lazy, buffoonish, self-centred, entitled, corrupt and incompetent delivered with the force of a tsunami. ‘I could do this for the whole hour,’ McGonagall jokes. No one disbelieves him after this virtuoso blast of vitriol, audacious and funny.

Next, Rishi Sunak is portrayed as a slick, soulless, money-grubbing Apprentice candidate, spouting corporate clichés, Nigel Farage as a ‘milkshake martyr’ branding anything not to his taste dangerously ‘woke’. That’s obviously not a wildly improbably extension of the truth – in fact, I’d say it didn’t go far enough for a man effectively stoking race riots –  but the merciless vituperation and lyrical use of language, vividly descriptive and rhythmically forceful make them very appealing. 

Away from these ad-hominem political attacks, McGonagall offers a tract against capitalism (as if written by his geriatric cat) and a vision of a dystopian future. And while we should never forget Prince Andrew’s car-crash Newsnight interview – nor fail to find his limp justifications and alibis hilarious – repeating Pizza Express in Woking as a punchline feels a bit hack, five years after the broadcast.

Also in the debit column is the fact there’s not much light and shade in the hour. The monologues between the poems are delivered just as pacily and persistently, so nothing quite has space to breathe. 

Though McGonagall wasn’t around at the birth of alternative political comedy – he’s just a shade too young and too busy establishing an acting career he now defines as ‘gurning in continental adverts’ – he shares their unwritten manifesto of using wit and performance as tools of protest. 

His poems are mostly sharp, and, when fully unleashed, channel the frustrations of millions over the political ineptitude of those now, finally, out on their ear.

Review date: 3 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Patter House