Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

As disastrous starts to the Fringe go, Friz Frizzle took the biscuit, going blind just days before their first performance when their one good eye failed. Yet being the definition of a trooper, the comedian was on stage just hours after emergency surgery.

It's the latest in a long line of health problems Frizzle has suffered, including diabetes-related necrosis and losing a finger just before last year’s festival.

Yet the green-haired musical comic is remarkably cheerful about this litany of health woes, cracking jokes about some of the things in life that must now be done on hard mode. A less cheery reality is alluded to, but only fleetingly.

These stand-up sections are interspersed with some song parodies, that much-maligned the comedy genre. The jaunty Frizzle’s examples are actually pretty good, defying most attempts to unpick the tricksy pun at the heart of each number until it’s revealed in the chorus. Even better are the delightful one-song-to-the-tune-of-another sections – a familiar routine to fans of I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue, but again, Frizzle finds some marvellous examples. 

If anything, even more music would have been welcome to punctuate the stand-up based on Frizzle’s amused reaction to all the adversity, where the tone is dependably witty and thoroughly admirable given all they’ve been through.

However, the routine about trying to claim PIP money from the most wilfully unhelpful benefits clerk should outrage anyone who hears it, yet another first-hand example of how utterly broken and cruel the system can be. Frizzle allows themself some righteous anger here – but of course they still leave us on a song…

Review date: 25 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Whistlebinkies