Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Geordie sketch quintet Metroland Live return to the Fringe this year, following up their 2024 debut The Box, inexplicably a Marmite proposition for the reviewing classes but one which generated some buzz at the beginning of that festival.

Their follow-up As Seen on TV is more of the same – disparate, hit or miss sketches, this time themed around TV. When they hit, they knock you spark out; when they miss, it’s sometimes difficult to see what they were aiming for.

As if to ease us in, the first few sketches have relatively conventional premises. A Geordie arrives in London and is documented by a Steve Irwin-style Geordie whisperer, who teaches us the calls and habits of his quarry; then there’s a Saturday morning TV host with an unsettling living mailbag for a mascot. Classic sketch stuff so far, and goes down great with the Saturday night crowd as all five of Metroland Live are big, loud, beefy boys, all with a pretty intense stage presence in their own way, and in no danger of getting overwhelmed by a rowdy audience.

The Bob Ross sketch is the first misfire, as it more or less just… depicts Bob Ross? Only he’s painting a wall instead of a canvas – not really clear where the laughs are meant to be here. Following that, weirdness immediately begins to peak as we’re introduced to Uncle Skull, a strange, very loud man in a Guy Fieri shirt throwing balloons around, with a giant guinea pig in tow. It’s the first sketch where there’s no real premise or real-world analogue to the bit, and is all the better for it. 

Uncle Skull is followed by a bit where, 30 minutes into the show, all five are together on stage for the first time, and it’s genuinely kind of impossible to describe what they’re doing. I wouldn’t call it a sketch exactly, but it’s very, very funny, and solidifies the impression that Metroland Live are best when they’re out there on the verge of free association.

Review date: 27 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Pleasance Dome