August 14, 2025 Fringe Review
Highly Recommended Show
This is a stand-up comedy showcase produced by Sid Singh and Clayton Smith. Every night has a different line up of the Edinburgh Fringe’s comedians. All of the proceeds of the show will go to the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies – an organisation that defends refugees seeking asylum in the United States.Fight your way through whichever dance party The Three Sisters is holding in the courtyard and turn right to Maggie’s Front Room (push past the party-ers, as if you were going to the main indoor entrance, then off to the side there’s a sign and a door and order will return once you go through it – you’re welcome). ‘Like the quiet room where the cool kids are at a wedding’, you’ll find this nightly comedy compilation from Sid Singh and Clayton Smith. 100% of donations go to the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS), a charity dedicated to defending refugees seeking asylum in the United States. All with their own shows at the Fringe this year, the guest performers tonight are a lovely combination and a lot of fun. Terrence Hartnett – a mixture of confidence and knowing awkwardness – says the word testicle an astonishing number of times (he’s had cancer) and interrupts his own bit about his mother questioning his sexuality to call a heckler sexy, in direct contradiction to his own point. Shalaka Kurup does brilliantly deadpan, confident, crowd-work throughout her set – giving us a few options for a final joke before she leaves (we choose her PhD in trains). Tito Pérez – a US comic based in Vienna and here for his first Edinburgh Fringe – performs a series of sweet and very funny jokes about trying to learn German, Spanglish, his wife’s zero-waste attitude to zip lock bags, and what he looks like in his new glasses. Urooj Ashfaq is a delight – an atheist who will therefore read us all our horoscopes (I am a Libra and against genocide). She ends with a very committed joke about One Direction and erotic fan fiction that has the room howling. Dylan Adler closes out the set running onto stage – he poses between punchlines and unabashedly performs high energy original comedy-musical numbers in this most unlikely venue for it. This room will take you with them, wherever they choose to go. Clayton Smith, our MC, is ‘the loveliest ginger’ that Kurup has ‘ever met’, and, really, he is! A warm, upbeat, and gently commanding presence, he’s happy to have the audience join in with the dance party background if he’s on stage (‘I say we sing’) but will keep everything running smoothly for guests and audience. Nobody is on the spot, everyone will be having a good time. The audible dance music and the dominating presence of Oasis in the city could have been tricky to work with but they are instead easily incorporated into the show. Why are Gen Z partying to early 2000s music ? (‘We’re fighting with the greatest hits of all time’, Ashfaq says). Will the audience come up with a favourite Oasis song that isn’t objectively one of the worst they wrote? (No). Smith pitches requests for money and chat about a serious subject and worthy cause perfectly. Oasis tickets aren’t cheap – surely those fans can find a little extra? Yes, CGRS is helping people seek asylum in the United States, they ‘will then help them move to a better country after that’. Sid Singh has been raising money for CGRS via comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe since 2019. Tonight on our way out, Smith tells us 10% of CGRS’s budget comes from Fringe donations every year. The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies has been working for the past twenty five years in legal protection, rights, and advocacy for refugees – particularly those fleeing gender-based violence. This year Singh is using twelve years of fringe experience and a wealth of connections built to pull in high-quality comedians to donate their time every night. Go see this slick, funny, lively show, get ideas of stand up you’d like to see next, and help continue Fringe support for CGRS in a year in which their work has become significantly more challenging. Dance party or not, you’ll have a good time. Click Here For Article