Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Two years ago Rob Copland had the best Fringe imaginable - five-star reviews, Edinburgh Comedy Award panel prize, and he even turned a profit. Why then should he come back? That's a question the comedian himself is grappling with. 

It's not just a case of addressing the ‘difficult second album’ syndrome of trying to match the artistic quality of the acclaimed Gimme (One With Everything), but something more bleak. For after achieving all he could have dreamed of at the 2024 festival, nothing really changed. The profits have long gone and he’s still not a full-time comedian. The most lucrative use of his brilliant joke-writing skills has been writing social media posts for Fray Bentos which the company did not appreciate. Living the dream!

What has changed is that he’s now a father – abandoning his baby to come back to Edinburgh to have a run that will definitely be worse than the last one. The only way is down, baby.

The mental torment over his decision to return fuels One (More Please) with an intense energy, as Copland delivers with vehement passion, yet never taking his eye off the funny. There’s a running joke about childishly flipping the bird to the crowd, but you feel like he also means it – apparently hating the whole audience-performer dynamic even though his command of the room is absolute.

Oh, but it is hilariously, uniquely funny too, with such inspired, offbeat routines such as giving personalities to the numbers in the ‘10,9,8…’ countdown, performed with 100 per cent conviction.

Examining the state of comedy is part of his existential crisis. And while he’s by no means the first to question the aggressive language of ‘killing’ and ‘dying’ on stage, he takes it to extremes. A bit too much, to be honest, but ‘reining it in’ is not what this show is about.

Likewise, he wants proper punishment for the industry’s predators… another violent fantasy that plays out too long – but then there are a lot of toxic men to get through. 

There’s a savage parody, too, of comedians who turn against their families for material, publicly criticising the few people who provide them with love and support in the hope of winning the approval of strangers. It’s not a healthy route, and not one he wants to go down.

One (More Please) is a ferocious, bitter take on the realities of the comedy world with some brilliant, if unrelated, set pieces, to remind us just what a loss it would be if Copland did come good on his threats to walk away. See him now, in case he does.

Review date: 22 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy at O'Neill's (The Tron)