Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

There are, understandably, quite a few comedians talking about AI at this year's Fringe – but Tom Short is the one most upfront about trying to get a large language model to write his show for him. 

The premise is that after 15 years in comedy, a five-star review and an Edinburgh Comedy Award still elude him. So he's asked ChatGPT to help him come up with all the elements he needs to be showered in accolades and trinkets.

Though did he really? He had to tell the bot that he needs the obligatory ‘sad bit’ 40 minutes in; it’s not something it learned for itself.

But what is this surely award-winning show to be about? Well, that's down to the audience. A select crowd tonight, several of whom he knows, come up with a list of suggestions that include Ratatouille, adult circumcision and the Titanic. 

Putting these topics into the software is not especially helpful, nor is it intended to be. Essentially, the prompts are to inspire Short himself, not ChatGPT, and he improvises routines based on what we proposed.

He makes a good fist of it too, not needing the AI’s suggested subroutines and moronically obvious pro tips, such as ‘present confidently’.

Short’s authority is rather more subdued than the alpha tech bros would take that to mean. He’s chatty, welcoming and very unthreatening – defining himself as so boring he reads crisp packets.

He has got the ‘sad bit’ in his back pocket already, having grown up in an area of Salford defined as one of the most deprived in the UK, and having spent a stint of his childhood homeless. Those experiences may be why he seems to be having such a nice time here. 

Because it's an intimate room, we all lob in suggestions that go beyond the minimum required to make the show work. It thus becomes a very conversational hour, albeit with no doubt that Short is in control, producing amusing routines from the top of his head and steering them into prepared material.

Ultimately, the big joke is that this show is, in fact, the opposite of AI. Rather than being built on algorithms, it is built on real humans connecting, sharing ideas and building on each other's thoughts. That could just catch on.

Review date: 17 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett