Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Stuart Goldsmith is fully aware of the pitfalls of his comedy niche, having chosen to devote his entire output to the climate crisis, a topic few want to hear about on a night out, despite its potentially cataclysmic consequences.

As he acknowledges, the best stand-up comes from a place of intense passion, the heart fomenting thoughts and emotions that just HAVE to come out. On that he ticks the box. But when that obsession is accompanied by a message, there’s a risk that raw fervour becomes a sermon, especially in a subject already known for its preachiness.

Accepting that ceaselessly banging the climate gong can be tiresome is his main way of negotiating that, making his own alienating advocacy the butt of many a self-deprecating joke, while underlining the hypocrisy he shares with everyone in the developed world in living a life that is bad for the planet.

His humanity, especially when confessing his own climate sins, builds empathy as he discusses the future of the planet, swinging from apocalyptic dread to the more optimistic assertion that, as a global population, we have never been healthier, better fed and wealthier. Goldsmith’s tendency to choose the catastrophising outlook stems from a childhood accident he doesn’t want to go into here - despite knowing any such trauma is catnip to Edinburgh reviewers – but nothing must detract from the primary objective of his work.

Sometimes, despite his best intentions, he does fall into the pitfall of preachiness, especially in a section about the mendacity of fossil fuel companies, fogging the damage their trillion-dollar businesses cause by placing the blame on consumers. The narrative that we must all do our bit is just their propaganda, he insists.

There’s some ambiguity here, since Goldsmith is trying to nudge us to better behaviour and to be a bit more concerned than we are about the dire situation. Is it a collective responsibility, or can we abdicate that to the evil oil giants?

His brisk show takes in AI - which has consequences beyond environmental impact – and routines about his own efforts to cut his carbon footprint, from illicitly charging his electric car to resolutely refusing a plastic bottle of water – albeit on board a jet flying 4,000 miles. 

Routines like this show how Goldsmith uses his 20 years of comedy experience – and those countless additional tips he’s picked up from 500-plus episodes of his Comedians’ Comedian podcast interviews – to steer an entertaining path through what’s ostensibly an unentertaining subject.

But while it’s clear his passion is genuine, cutting through some of the earnestness of his act and the innate politeness of his personality, it’s still more comedy from the head than the heart. It’s hard to see him as a firebrand gluing himself to a motorway, but he’d surely fire off a succinct, intelligent and witty memo. He’s done all the reading and says a lot of his work now is conferences and symposia. I bet he storms those.

There is, he argues, with plenty of justification, no political cause greater than climate change. He’s not the angry Lenny Bruce causing disruption but the urbane Mort Sahl gently pricking the status quo. Is that more muted, clubbable approach going to make us change our ways? Who knows – but Goldsmith makes us unafraid to engage with the topic, without the risk of being berated for being ideologically impure.

• Stuart Goldsmith: Canary is on at Monkey Barrel Comedy (Cabaret Voltaire) at 14:25, then on a UK tour this autumn.

Review date: 18 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy (Cabaret Voltaire)