Milo Edwards sets the tone early on – he comes out loud, audacious, with a slickly black sense of humour and borderline poetic turn of phrase. He tells his crowd he’s tried emotional profundity with his show last year, but now he just wants to rail against “all the shit that pisses me off” and turn his ire on the British class system, posh people, skiing, the post office, the Falklands, etc. He tears into his targets with an exhilarating ferocity, his observations are righteously bitter, and his one liners and callbacks are razor sharp. Using all of his powers he crafts a high-octane hour of laughs that refuses to let up or let anyone off the hook.
Edwards admits that, because of his accent, he is frequently mistaken for a posh person, and his girlfriend is from that world, so he has a unique insight into the absurdities of the British upper class, and he uses it, as well as his upbringing far from old money, to craft unique examinations and side-splitting juxtapositions. The British class system is not all about money – it’s about hunting, skiing, schools – and he rightly recognises and ridicules this in the cleverest and most caustic comedy.
His gaze is not limited to class, however, and he mines his esoteric knowledge for some wonderfully unique material. From the Falklands War, Japanese war crimes, British pornography, to the 1948 Palestine partition, Edwards, with his astonishingly intelligent satire, generates laughs from subjects most comedians would consider off-limits. Edwards is fearless, however, and he can (and will) poke fun at almost anything – a risky approach, perhaps, but one which pays off.
Milo Edwards: How Revolting! Sorry to Offend, 17.45, until August 25
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/milo-edwards-how-revolting-sorry-to-offend
