Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

It takes a lot of money and work to put on an Edinburgh show, but strangely Michael Welch’s heart doesn’t seem to be in it. He grumbles at the start that ‘you can’t just do jokes in the Fringe’ in reference to hour-long sets requiring greater purpose or theme.

Well, certainly not with jokes as weak as his. Pretty much everything seems like a first thought, with no urge to develop a gag out of it. An example: ‘When did supplements become a thing? Turmeric? What are we doing? Making a curry?’ 

Likewise, golf is dismissed with a ‘Why would I want to walk around looking for a small white ball?’, and that’s it. All very halfhearted, with the air of someone who just can’t be bothered to write jokes beyond a vague ‘isn’t this a bit weird?’ Welch is personable enough, but mildly amusing content that raises a small smile just isn’t enough,

Much of the show is built around stock complaints about ‘getting older, at the age of 31, but it barely skims the personal. There is a good joke here about ‘finding my first grey pube… in my kebab’. Or at least it was a good joke when Jeff Green first cracked it 30-odd years ago. Surely coincidence, but it’s not a great  sign that it’s the best gag in the hour.

Emblematic of his lack of care and conviction is when he belatedly introduces a structural device, as if he suddenly remembered the expectations of a solo show that he grumbled about at the top. It’s clear he doesn’t believe in it, so does it half-cocked, not setting it up, executing or concluding it properly. Do it, or don’t.

The same advice applies to this whole show, his third at the Fringe, which seems so reluctantly ground out and so devoid of conviction you wonder why he bothered, or half-bothered, at all. 

When there are hundreds of comics pouring their heart and soul into their festival, a show that seems like it was written on the long bus ride from the outer Edinburgh suburb where Welch lives is just a waste of everyone’s time. Some rizz, but all filler.

Review date: 5 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Patter House