stand-up

The Edinburgh Fringe Archives – Ismo Leikola (Observing The Obvious, 2015)

This week I want to head back to 2015. That year the show was broadcast live on Leith FM community radio, as well as being a podcast, with a number of guest hosts joining me – so you’ll hear the voice of WUSB New York’s Emma Backfish – as well as our comedy just… Finland’s Ismo Leikola.

For countless decades, the ‘observational comedy’ routine has been a staple of stand ups… yes we have all seen just how many Cafe Nero’s there are, and how many stamps you need to get a free coffee, but Ismo brought a new angle on this to the Fringe… doing it in his second language.

A laid back Finnish style put me in mind of the razer sharp gentleness of Arnold Brown. Ismo’s skills wasn’t the choice of well-worn topics, is was putting a twist on the resulting points that lifted this show up.

So we return to the Gilded Balloon, we return to the time honoured comedian watching our everyday life, we return to a rather chaotic studio, to Observing the Obvious.

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Edinburgh Fringe Show 2022 – Ignacio Lopez (El Cómico)

Ewan sits down with Igancio Lopez to talk about the family name being passed down the years, performing indoors in the heat of an Edinburgh summer, and why he hasn’t brought his Lockdown Quiz Nights to the Edinburgh Fringe.

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The Edinburgh Fringe Show 2022 – Luca Cupani (Happy Orphan)

Italian comic Luca Cupani has always been a popular face at the Free Fringe, but in 2022 he has a one-hour tickted show called Happy Orphan, and the adventure he took when the rent ran out for mother’s grave He joins Ewan to talk about his show, his first experiences of open-mic comedy, why he looks younger now than he did ten years ago, and why Italian paperwork indirectly led to his Fringe 2022 show.

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