Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

It should come as little surprise that Gareth Gwynn’s tribute to his great-grandfather Cyril – a poet who chronicled the ways of rural Wales, becoming something of a local hero to the people of Gower – is gentle and low-key. 

Because its origins are not in some vaulting ambition to storm the Edinburgh Fringe, but in a small village poetry festival, which had invited the BBC comedy writer and radio host to deliver a talk on his illustrious forebear. The result is a combination of biographical detail and extracts from the verses themselves, with Gareth carefully choosing the most witty extracts.

Piecing together Cyril’s life proved an engrossing task. Quite soon, Gareth discovered that his ancestor was not a natural at performing his poems, with contemporaneous reviews describing him as looking ill at ease on stage. Gareth’s not so badly afflicted, though his presence is that of modest storyteller, not alpha comedian.

Research unveiled surprising aspects of Cyril’s life, such as him being shipwrecked off the coast of Africa, a penchant for fighting, and a tantalisingly vague incident involving a pig in Mexico. That's quite the adventure for someone who projected an image of being the epitome of the simple, savvy farmer. 

Despite his globetrotting, Cyril’s story is an antidote to globalisation and artificial intelligence – as it is clearly rooted in a strong  sense of place. His ‘old-world stanzas’ stem from an understanding that only someone so deeply enmeshed in every aspect of local life and the human connections could understand. Even Gareth faces challenges on that front, given he confesses to being a town mouse, living in Cardiff, Bath and now London rather than having some deep connection to the South Wales soil. 

Yet Cyril's tales are full of contradictions too, and more unlikely twists, such as ending up at a college for aspiring Tory MPs, where his classmates included Winston Churchill's appalling son, Randolph. 

Gareth is a gentle, charming narrator with a tale that probably has special resonance if you're Welsh. Even then, it is unlikely to set your world alight, but instead achieves its aim of painting a charming, vivid and loving portrait of a man and a life that was extraordinary, especially by the standards of a century ago. 

Review date: 7 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Patter House