Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Last time we saw Frankie Monroe, he was being dragged into the netherworld by his balls via the hellmouth that had appeared in his Rotherham working men’s club.

Well it turns out that ‘Yorkshire’s biggest bastard’ is right at home down there, having landed a cushty job as entertainments officer for the damned.

And he takes to it with zeal. There’s a fine line between the eternal torment of your mortal soul and being on a cruise ship, and Monroe’s old-school entertainer is right at home here, playing mad games, singing mad songs, and doing his demented ventriloquism act with his mangey puppet dog.

It all works so well because of creator Joe Kent-Walters’ obvious love of this dying genre of end-of-the-pier entertainment. He’s not so much mocking it as updating it for a more ironic, postmodern audience. See also Vic & Bob’s Big Night Out, such an obvious precursor to Frankie it’s impossible not to mention it.

But Kent-Walters ramps up the intensity with a manic performance that mixes lumbering Joker-style menace with playfulness, and with the unpredictable shifts between the two all part of the joke. Quipping about who else is down here in the pits of eternal torment adds another bit of edge, too.

Occasionally, the real comedian peeks out from behind the fast-melting Sudocrem whiteface to assure us it’s all a bit of fun, as if that was in any doubt. With his encouragement, the audience  leap into the pantomime of it all, responding enthusiastically as required.  

Kent-Walters also has impressive improv skills, engaging in quick-witted crowdwork. And the front-row sap he selected as his main volunteer tonight was a fantastically good sport.

Frankie no longer introduces twisted variety acts, as he did last year, as he’s clearly a big enough character to carry the whole show. That said, we do get to meet – and defeat – the notorious Sausage Slapper.

After a while in hell, Kent-Walters decides we probably need a plot, and so contrives to bring Frankie back to Rotherham and reclaim The Misty Moon from the villainous Vegas Dave. The new owner has - horror of horrors – added expensive IPA and swanky food to the menu. This monster must be stopped. 

Awash with catchphrases, dumb visual gags, and a winning sense of anything-for-a-laugh chaos, this takes all the elements that won Kent-Walters the best newcomer gong last year and plays them bigger and bolder. He’s a comic more-than willing to go to hell and back to entertain you, and the result is glorious pandemonium.

Review date: 8 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy (Cabaret Voltaire)