Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

I’ve seen my fair share of odd Fringe venues, but The Alchemist in St James Quarter is a new one. A huge balcony about Six Stories up, open to the elements, so you can watch the rain lash down on Leith Street. Blankets are provided. Honestly I didn’t mind it; beats being too hot.

Onto this stage, a world away from the legion of North London transplants at the Pleasance and battling all sorts of environmental challenges comes Craig Speirs, one of the Chortle Hotshots making his Fringe debut. 

A wiry car mechanic from a rough area of Glasgow that he describes as a ‘junkie capital,’ Speirs has a wealth of tales, tall or otherwise, that seem to take place in a universe that most Fringe comedians have never visited. He grew up in a time and place where 'the only medication for [his] ADHD was a slap in the face.'

The show is loosely themed around that condition, with anecdotes that reflect his main symptoms – inattention, impulsivity, executive dysfunction and hyperfocus – all fertile if well-ploughed grounds for comedy. 

The show is gritty but not downbeat; Speirs loves a mad story about someone crashing their car because they saw a horse having sex, or a guy repeatedly catching the same STD from a sex worker in Dunoon. 

It’s classic stuff, often with the ring of folklore, often on the bawdy side, and sounds very similar to something you might hear in a working men’s club in the 1970s, but Speirs is self-aware enough to keep it on the right side of cheeky. 

His style is probably better suited to a mixed-bill environment with a rowdy audience than a long-form semi-theatrical piece delivered into the howling wind, but this is a scrappy show with plenty to enjoy.

Review date: 22 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Alchemist | St James Quarter,