Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

In our last review of Les Keen we identified him as ‘one to watch’. And sure enough, his first show after that write-up is in the biggest space Just The Tonic’s Caves has to offer.

Mind you, it has been a full 25 years since we offered that critique…

Because soon after we saw him on the circuit in 2000, he moved from live work and fully into TV, giving him a decades-long career that has come to be entirely defined by the fact he came up with Paddy McGuinness’s Take Me Out catchphrase No Likey, No Lighty.

No wonder he has returned to the Fringe at the age of 60 in a bid to ensure that’s not his whole legacy, joking that he doesn’t want his tombstone to read ‘No Breathe-y, No Live-y’.

His TV career is off-limits – too many stifling NDAs protecting the wrong ’uns in light entertainment, apparently – so instead we take a dive, though not an especially deep one, into his domestic life.

Keen explains he used to be a one-line merchant, and even if he says he’s moved on, old habits die hard. Gags still come first, and he keeps the details superficial. Even a routine on assisted dying is rooted in silliness.

His 30-year marriage and his two late-teenage kids is reduced to old-school sitcom simplicity. The relationship has become mundane, and the kids are driving him up the wall, especially with the amount of money they keep demanding.

Further late middle-age grumbles concern him having to scan his own groceries so he might as well be employed by the supermarket, and the move from his working-class roots firmly into the middle class (his daughter asked for a pomegranate!). It’s sardonically amusing, but won’t be troubling Micky Flanagan, and his similar shtick.

To demonstrate a comedy-writer’s job is safe from AI, Keen gets ChatGPT to write a routine on the spot and in the style of John Bishop. Of course, it’s not great – though I’ve seen human open spots with less, and many of them come good after a few years – and it feels like filler to be reading it out in full.

His best segment revolves around losing a testicle to cancer, again played with eyes firmly on the punchline and the humiliating experiences he was subjected to. The operation was one of eight times he’s gone under general anaesthetic in his life. There’s no pathos in these medical dramas, but he provides brisk accounts designed to pack in the most jokes.

Keen is certainly a man who knows how to write a punchline – his career proves that – but over an hour he’s undeniably a bit rusty. Routines need more exposure to audiences to be refined, the universal observations made a bit sharper, or the personal routines more revealing. But there’s a decent number of good gags and that’s a solid foundation for a stand-up comeback, should this be the start of one.

Review date: 6 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Just The Tonic at The Caves