Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Will Sebag-Montefiore has been steadily growing a solid following on social media with his satirical songs and sketches. Although he describes how dispiriting it is to have to keep feeding the monster with a constant barrage of fun content for free, it does draw him a packed room at the Fringe.

Life online also means life in the comments section, so the good-natured comic knows all about getting abuse from the political right. Jibes from the manosphere about his hair loss are a constant, he says, complaining sarcastically that ‘making men feel slightly insecure about the way they look is something women could never understand.’ But while he used to shrug off the insults, when a real transplant clinic offered him a freebie, he thought he’d give it a go.

That’s a minor narrative backbone for a show that otherwise features the same disjointed collection of jaunty political songs and other miscellanea as his reels, each given a caption here by an AI voiceover (which his wife is very good at providing). 

These include smart one-man sketches such as the British nationalist answer to Irish provocateurs Kneecap. That this mocks the rose-tinted nostalgia for an unachievable past as weaponised by Reform is no surprise, as Sebag-Montefiore’s deserving targets are all drawn from the same political dumpster, which also includes the likes of Elon Musk, Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson (here portrayed as a hacky stand-up, which is pretty much on point). This is quite a bleak landscape, but it's amazing what a great beat will do, and Sebag-Montefiore keeps things buoyant.

He uses song parody for good, such as a Mumford and Sons rewrite mocking the reinvention of the band’s banjoist Winston Marshall as a right-leaning podcaster (not quite as surprising as it first seems given his hedge fund manager dad co-owns GB News).

Across the board, the points Sebag-Montefiore is making are pretty much what any progressive would expect, proving you don’t need an algorithm to provide an echo chamber. 

But they bear repeating, not least to remind his audience that there are plenty of like-minded people who find the onslaught of awfulness abhorrent, and deserving only to be laughed at. And he does so with smug dad jokes, jolly tunes and disarming self-deprecation. And a full head of hair? You’ll have to see the show to find out….

Review date: 25 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Laughing Horse @ West Nic Records