Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Will and Noah were named best sketch act at SketchFest 2026, which sounds like an event that should know the genre. But while the pair have the chemistry that performing together for a decade brings, Dinner Dinner Chicken Winner feels a little too conservative to be interesting.

They are also fighting against their venue: Wee Coo is ill-suited to the sketch groups Underbelly keeps putting in there, as its soft walls absorb all unamplified sound. Our first winner in this parade of characters should have oodles of alpha swagger, but his voice has all the power of a dormouse trapped in a sleeping bag.

Being a show based around awards ceremonies, the premise is that every character is a literal winner – though of course they are mostly losers. The gulf is most obvious in the sporting accolades being handed out at the big night for North Enfield Under-12s Division C, where mums are banned and the pathos behind a certain sort of football laddishness is amusingly exposed.

Old-school comedy double-acts have long been a staple for mockery, with cheesy, meaningless catchphrases reflecting a world of end-of-the-pier entertainment that no longer exists. Will and Noah’s version –  Arm and A Leg –  constantly complain: ‘Suppose you can’t say that any more.’ Will and Noah don’t aim for much parody beyond that, and there’s not much more to it. 

A skit about a hard-working chef being overshadowed by a Gen Z influencer who just has to point and click to get his content is probably the strongest, a satire on what jobs society seems to be valuing, turning to silly absurdity as a culinary expert turns to photography himself.

But others are much more slight. ‘Why do athletes bite their medals?’ asks one montage, as if they’d spotted an obscure phenomenon rather than what’s already a cheesy running joke about their precious metals that photographers always ask them to do. 

Meanwhile rewriting the ancient Halloween hit Monster Mash to be about the Will Smith Oscars slap seems like something that might have been OK as a rushed topical skit at the time – more than four years later, it’s a lot weaker and a lot more stale.

Former Cambridge Footlighters Will BF (Bicknell-Found) and Noah Geelan are slick performers and the hour’s well put-together, but it could do with more personality and attitude, not to mention ruthlessness in the writing and editing. 

Review date: 26 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Underbelly George Square