Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Nine years ago, not long after his victory in the Chortle Student Comedy Award, Andy Field was making his Edinburgh Fringe debut in the intimate Cellar room in the 46-capacity Pleasance Courtyard. 

Fast forward to 2026, and here he is… playing the intimate 46-capacity Cellar room at the Pleasance Courtyard.

Is he bitter about such career stagnation? Jealous that near-contemporaries from the student awards, such as  Jamali Maddix and Phil Wang, have gone on to greater things? No, he insists, after all, his job is stand-up, the one thing he dreamed of doing since he was a teenager – and that alone is a win. Giddy Up, then, is a celebration of judging the success of your life by your own standards, and owning your mistakes as the things that make you, you.

In comedy, Field has had plenty of setbacks, including screwing up a gig in front of the man who books comedians for Live At The Apollo. A bigger contribution is his general laissez-faire attitude to life. He’s not an ambitious go-getter, but loves smoking dope, spent a hefty stint in a warehouse squat with an MDMA dealer, and is no stranger to hallucinogens. The plus side of this lifestyle is that it’s given him stories to share on stage, such as the bizarre consequences of tripping in Tesco.

He's also not played the industry game. He uses no writers and no director, believing that collaboration is homogenisation. Having no tech for his Edinburgh run is, however, more of a financial decision.

He performs in front of a giant horse blanket – that’s a blanket with a vivid fantasy image of a horse running through waves on it, not a blanket you keep a horse in. After many a gag, he turns away to stroke it, before turning to his left to take a sip of his Ribena, avoiding eye contact with the audience.

No wonder he has to talk about whether to get an autism diagnosis or not. He chooses not to, part of the same ethos of tackling life in his own way, on his own terms. And again the stories provide grist for the comedy mill.

Alongside the self-deprecating anecdotes that almost always end in embarrassment are a smattering of quirky one-liners about the likes of laser surgery, or straightforward stand-up about not having found his kink yet after 34 years on this planet – the sort of solid stuff that’s kept him in his job playing the clubs all this time.

Could the show have been tighter, more focused, had he taken a director’s help? Almost certainly. But Field is a funny guy with an alternative way of looking at the world, and his own way of living – and that’s enough.

Review date: 13 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard