MAYBE it’s the exchange rate. Maybe it’s the call of the old world. Maybe it’s the lure of Irn Bru and square sausage. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the pull of the biggest arts festival in the world.
Whatever the reason, the Yanks are coming. In August 2023 there will be so many American comedians in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital could qualify as the unofficial 51st state of the United States.
Some 142 of them all told, which represents 11.5 per cent (give or take the odd decimal point) of this year’s stand-up acts at the Fringe.
What is the draw? There are as many reasons as there are comedians but speak to any American comic and it’s clear that the Fringe has a cachet that stretches across the Atlantic.
“When I tell people I’m doing Edinburgh it gets a bigger reaction than anything else I’ve done,” Robin Tran tells me over Zoom from his home in Los Angeles. “I’ve done Netflix. I’ve been on Comedy Central. But when I say I’m doing Edinburgh people’s faces light up. I’ve always known it’s a big deal.”
Tran, 37, has even been in training for the Fringe. “I’ve lost about 25 lbs since January just cutting out all the vices, cutting way back on marijuana, caffeine, sugars and salts. Anything that would make me not at my best because I’m performing 25 shows or something. And I want every single one of them to be special.”
As an Asian transgender lesbian comedian, there’s a sense, too, that, for Tran, Edinburgh offers a platform to present herself at her best.
“I’ve been through a lot of different identities doing stand-up. I started as Robert Tran. I was doing stand-up as a guy initially. I was almost like an incel type character. And then I got a girlfriend and I lost my virginity so I had to get rid of my virgin jokes.
“And I started establishing myself as this guy with a girlfriend and then I realised I was trans, so I had to come out as trans and had to make jokes about being a woman.
“I was also really depressed and at the end of 2019 I got rid of my depression. I got medicated. So, I would say from 2021 until now I have been really finding who I actually am without the depression.
“I don’t think I was funny until I got rid of my depression. When you get rid of the depression you start trusting your instincts more.
“I’m more excited about my stand-up than I’ve ever been because there doesn’t seem to be a difference between talking to me on Zoom or talking to me on a stage or offstage. I think that’s the secret; to just be yourself all the time.”
Edinburgh, then, will see Tran at her best. And at her most ambitious. What she is looking forward to is offering audiences a proper show. “It’s forced me to look at this hour that I have and to figure out the themes of it. I want it to be a cohesive show. Like Sergeant Pepper’s, it’s a concept album.”
This is part of the appeal of Edinburgh for New York-based stand-up Chloe Radcliffe too. The chance to push at the boundaries of stand-up. Her show Cheat is about her struggles with monogamy, polyamory and insecurity.
“I had heard about Edinburgh and gone, ‘Oh, maybe someday I will do that.’ And then I started working on this project and went, ‘Oh, it’s so natural to take this show to Edinburgh.’ This just feels like a very natural goal for the show that I’m running. Naturally this is where this show belongs.”
Radcliffe, 32, has been doing stand-up for eight years now. She made her Comedy Central debut last year and has been a writer on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. What is she expecting when she travels to Edinburgh?
“I’m expecting to be overwhelmed 30 days straight. That certainly is true. I feel like I’m standing on a cliff and about to jump into water and I know I just have to take a deep breath and jump and that I don’t know what I will feel when I hit the water.”
Whatever she feels, she is planning to stay afloat.
“I am viewing the month as work. People are saying, ‘Go hike Arthur’s Seat’ And I’m sure I’ll hike Arthur’s Seat. I love hiking. I love things called Arthur’s Seat. But to me it’s work. People were trying to give me food recommendations, but I want to eat a hamburger every single day so I have protein and so I don’t have to make a decision. That is how I am viewing it.
“I am trying to take the festival really seriously and I am trying to take the run really seriously.”
And why shouldn’t she? The Fringe represents a huge investment of time and money. “I would guess that it will be around 12 to 14 grand, US dollars. I keep turning the dial up on what I am willing to lose.”
And what might she gain? “It’s kind of a gamble. Sure, would I say the return I am seeking from it is to be the next Alex Edelman [who won best newcomer at the Fringe in 2014]? What use does it do for me to say that I want to be the next Alex Edelman? Because I don’t have any way of predicting how the dominoes are going to fall.
“So, the return, honestly I don’t know. I am hoping there is a good one on the other end. It’s just a gamble. I’m gambling a lot of money and on the other end of it I will go, ‘Look at all these creative partnerships I made,’ or ‘Look at all these people I met, look at these LA development people I met.’
“Why couldn’t I meet those LA development people in LA? It’s a gamble but my gut says it’s a reasonable gamble to make.”
This is not a vacation. “No! Oh my God.”
New York stand-up Peter Glismann, on the other hand, thinks it might be. “I’m not leaving Scotland without at least a couple of bottles of bourbon and a wool-knit sweater,” he admits. That said, he’s hoping it might be more. What might that “more” look like?
“If I can get a calling card that says, ‘He did the festival’. If I can get a resume, network, maybe do some of the open mics, catch some of the other shows, make some new friends. I’m not looking to recoup the cost. This is a vacation I can afford.”
Glismann, who is coming for a week at the start of the Fringe, is a stand-up with a day job.
“I’m a licensed professional engineer. I get hired as an expert witness by law firms to do personal injury, product liability and construction defect litigation. And then I also get hired by insurance companies because I am a special instructor on construction sites. I inspect everything from the base of the foundation to the tip of the roof, residential and commercial.”
That’s a proper, serious, grown-up job.
“Oh, without a doubt. One of the reasons I got into comedy was it gave me a relief from all the adulting I’m expected to do.”
How do the two things work together? “Well, if there’s a Venn diagram between engineering and stand-up comedy, I’ve never seen it.”
Glismann has been doing stand-up for 25 years in the autumn, though he was always one for the one-liner, even in his days in the military.
“I used to tell jokes in the Pentagon just to break the ice. I had a top-secret security clearance and sometimes when I started a presentation I would try to start with a little joke because it’s a very uptight tense environment.”
Not that his love of comedy has always been helpful. His debut Fringe show Escape Velocity comes with the tagline, “an anecdotal, confessional, funny story of a rocket scientist’s journey through sex addiction.”
Basically, he says, “I didn’t realise how getting obsessed and absorbed with comedy was me not escaping my demons but giving into them.
“I reached a point where I was having sex with four women a day. I reached a point where I didn’t know whether I was supposed to feel guilty for cheating on my wife or my mistress. I reached a point where I would get up in the middle of the night and pretend to use the restroom to see if a woman had a piece of mail or a degree on the wall just so I’d remember their first name. It got insane. I reached a point where I thought, ‘Enough’.”
Edinburgh offers him the platform to talk about all of this. But is that enough to justify his four-figure investment? He hopes so.
“The fact that you have performed at the festival in a show that you wrote and produced yourself is a huge calling card for casting agents. It shows you are committed. It’s one of the things casting directors say, ‘OK, before I put this guy in a show like Law & Order, can he act? Oh wait, he’s written and directed and produced and performed in his own show and I’ve got the YouTube link to prove it.’
“It’s much better than trying to do off-off Broadway. If you want to play Vegas, if you want to play cruise ships, if you want to do the paid work that matters, it’s better to do the Edinburgh Fringe than it is to do the Aspen Comedy Festival.”
Robin Tran agrees. “I would say it’s career-making. I know Fleabag started there. I see it as … God, you know, the biggest validation of everything I’ve been working for.”
Robin Tran Don’t Look At Me
18:25 Assembly George Square: The Box, August 2 – 27
Chloe Radcliffe Cheat’, 19:15 Pleasance Courtyard – Bunker III August 2 – 28 (not 14th)
Peter Glismann Escape Velocity’ 21:15 theSpace @Surgeon’s Hall August 4 – 12
And there’s more…
Avital Ash Workshops Her Suicide Note
Sexuality, survivor’s guilt and suicidal ideation are at the heart of Avital Ash’s Fringe debut.
22.05 Monkey Barrel: The Tron, August 1-27 (not 14)
Maggie Crane: Side By Side
This New York-based comedian makes her Edinburgh debut with an autobiographical show about her relationship with her disabled brother.
17:45 Underbelly – Dexter – Bristo Square, August 3-28 (not 14)
Nick Pupo: Addicted
Originally from Florida but now based in New York, the comedian Nick Pupo, star of Daisy Jones & The Six, comes to Edinburgh to talk about friendship and drug addiction.
18:10 Just the Tonic at the Bottle Room, August 3-37 (not 14)
Salma Hindy & Danielle Deluty: Parallel
Egyptian-Canadian Hindy and New Jersey-raised Deluty discuss their parallel childhoods growing up in, respectively, Muslim and Jewish households, and the friendship they now share.
Just the Tonic @ The Caves – Just Out of the Box, 3.20pm, August 3-27 (not 14 or 21)
Lucas O’Neil: Emotional Man
Masculinity, fathers and sons, death, grief and laughing at a funeral. Just some of the things Lucas O’Neil talks about in Emotional Man.
Just the Tonic @ The Caves – Just Up the Road, 5.20pm, August 3-27 (not 14)
Sophie Santos: Is Codependent
Award-winning comedian, writer and author of The One You Want to Marry, comes to the Fringe with a show about breaking up with a soulmate, OCD and learning to live alone.
19:00 Underbelly – Jersey, August 2-28 (not 14)
Lane Kwederis: Sex Job,
14:25 Underbelly @ Bristo Square – Clover Room, August 2-28
Lane Kwederis is a New York-based financial dominatrix who moonlights as a comedian. Here she reveals the secrets behind her sex work.
Patrick Susmilch: Texts From My Dead Friends
Susmilch gives a PowerPoint presentation that draws on the digital messages of deceased friends to moving and amusing ends.
Just the Tonic @ The Mash House – Cask Room, 3.20pm, August 3-27 (not 14)
Tim Murray: Witches!
Queerty-nominated comedian Tim Murray mixes up stand-up and original songs in this show which takes in everything from The Craft to Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Underbelly – Dairy Room – Bristo Square, 9.20pm, August 2-28 (not 14)
Ginny Hogan: Regression
Former data scientist turned New York stand-up, Ginny Hogan’s Edinburgh debut tells a story about alcoholism and Silicon Valley.
Gilded Balloon Teviot – The Lounge, 1.40pm, August 2-27 (not 14)
The Kinsey Sicks Drag Queen Storytime Gone Wild!
Jeff Manabet, Spencer Brown, Nathan Marken and JB McLendon bring four-part harmonies, dressing up and their unique brand of salacious satirical songs to the Fringe.
Gilded Balloon – The Museum, 7.20pm, August 2-27 (not 15 or 22)
