Tag Archives: Tom Stade

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 Reviews – The Crawl, Sam Lake: You’re Joking!? Not Another One!, Good For You, Mussolini, and Tom Stade: Naughty by Nature

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The Crawl, Pleasance Dome.3-starsIn a small acting space at the Edinburgh Fringe we’re about to witness an amazing sporting final – the 300 kilometre swimming pursuit between Russian Ice-man Mita and typical Brit lad Steve. Can Steve use his tactical game to put the pressure on the unbeaten Russian? You’ll have to watch The Crawl to find out! This is a very smart concept for a show – having two physical comedians act out the process of swimming on stage (there’s only the occasional splash of water) – and it’s a particularly promising and funny start. However, the show needs more content to keep the interest going over an hour, and there’s quite a lengthy serious sequence which lands uneasily with the playfulness of the rest of the show. There’s some audience participation, and it’s certain that the more the audience plays along with it, the better it makes the show (our audience was very reticent to take part!) Overall, it doesn’t quite work but there’s still much to admire and enjoy. 3 stars.

Sam Lake: You’re Joking!? Not Another One! Monkey Barrel Comedy (Tron).
Although he’s been on the comedy scene for a few years now, this was our first exposure to Sam Lake, and I regret that I must have missed out on a lot of laughter in the past! For the avoidance of doubt, Sam Lake comes on stage and immediately announces he’s gay. Having established that salient fact, he points out that he’s extremely welcoming to the straight lads in the audience – indeed, he doesn’t know how we do it. He then weaves a wonderful sequence of comic storytelling about the difficulties he had about coming out and includes a story about receiving a delivery where the deliveryman refused to accept that Sam knew his own surname. It’s a clever illustration of his search to find and confirm his own identity, which reaches a serious moment when he asserts that he’s simply not going to try to win over a certain type of audience member. This leads to a brilliant comedic coup de theatre, which hilariously sums up everything he’s tried to say over the previous fifty minutes. Sam Lake gains a fantastic rapport with the audience, has a uniquely fun energy on stage, and his show is crammed with exceptionally funny material. And it reinforces a very positive message too! Highly recommended. 5 stars.

Good For You, The Space on The Mile.<3-starsAmbition is a vital attribute for a top American attorney. When Michael is sacked on the grounds of sexual misconduct, his wife Jeanie is devastated – but she also has eyes on taking over his high-profile and lucrative casework, including the Goldsmith case. The trouble is, so are her two colleagues, the diligent Zara and the newbie Summer, and it’s up to boss Alan to decide who will inherit the big ticket dossier. Good For You is an entertaining exploration of workplace ambition and rivalry between women, each of whom has their own personal issues to navigate as well as taking care of their own career. Three strong performances from Fiona Hourston, Natalie Beller and Netaniah Faison Osborne lay bare the truths of how exasperated women work together when the boss refuses to commit. 3 stars.

Mussolini, C Arts C Venues C Alto.3-starsIf there’s one person in history of whom I’ve heard a lot but actually know very little, it’s Mussolini. The Italian wartime dictator, known for his belligerent behaviour and grumpy face, allied with Hitler and held the rest of Europe in contempt, especially Britain. But if you want to find out more about Mussolini’s part in the war, Tom Corradini’s show won’t help you a lot, I’m afraid. It’s set in the Palazzo Venezia in July 1943 as Mussolini awaits news of what the Government will decide to do with him. From his thoughts and reflections, you gain an impression of a mentally unstable, rather childish, self-satisfied man, who had little time for Churchill or even Hitler, but was afraid of Stalin. You meet a man who understands the art of oratory, and that how you say something is more important than what you say. Tom Corradini gives a convincing portrayal of this mass of self-contradictions, this womanising creep, this puerile man-boy; but if you’re looking for a factual history lesson, you’ll probably be disappointed. 3 stars.

Tom Stade: Naughty by Nature, The Stand Comedy Club.Who can resist an hour in the company of the irrepressibly mischievous Tom Stade? There’s no one quite like Tom to mine brilliant comic material from the generation gap. From words you can’t say anymore, to ways in which you can meet a partner, from gaslighting, to allowing someone to “change” you, Tom is a master of making the unsayable sayable, and he had the entire room in hysterics for a full hour. His style is relaxed, confiding and companionable, and his material is fully relatable and honest. That’s what makes his shows so funny, because he tells the truths about relationships that we all recognise but might not dare to say out loud. Always a joy! 5 stars.

Review – Gareth Mutch and Tom Stade, Comedy Crate Edinburgh Previews at the Museum, Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, 23rd June 2024

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With the inevitability of night following day and misadventure following Sunak, Edinburgh Previews come around again, as plucky comedians start girding their loins for the Greatest Show on Earth (well, the Greatest Show north of the border). A quick check of the Edinburgh Fringe website reveals over 1,350 comedy shows taking place there this summer, so it’s only right and proper that the Comedy Crate should bring some of them to our attention. And the first of these shows we were able to catch this year took place in the dignified surroundings of the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery.

Gareth Mutch and Tom Stade shared a preview night last year, so they clearly go together like Cheese and Onion. First up was Gareth Mutch, with a preview of his Edinburgh show for this year, Modern Man. Not sure what you think of when you think of “modern man”, but I think of a man with a progressive outlook, a firm feminist and not afraid to show his feelings. Gareth has followed the advice of some expert who described it as someone who “struggles with modern life”. Not sure I quite believe that.

No matter. Gareth has a hugely engaging stage persona; he’s a big chap with a bit of a gruff exterior but within a few seconds of seeing his act you realise he’s a true softy inside. He has some excellent material where he beautifully demonstrates his Beta Male qualities, with his inability to fix a boiler – he can’t even come to terms with the fact he has an airing cupboard. He also has a brilliant routine where he challenges audience members to decide what’s best: falling in love or being married? If you’re concerned about offending your other half with your reply, he has a very funny test to help you decide the right answer.

A preview show is precisely that; as Gareth said in his introduction, there may hopefully be parts of the show where the comedy soars, and there will doubtless be parts where it falls flat on it’s a*se. He started a sequence which involved a very dubious reference to shall we say a difficult subject – and it was met with stony – nay, shocked – silence from the crowd. Wisely, he decided instantly to drop it. Because Gareth comes across as such a likeable guy, suddenly to confront us with a very challenging and tough-to-find-humour-in subject was like a slap in the face. But a Preview Show is a learning curve – that’s what it’s all about. There’s definitely plenty to look forward to in Modern Man, and Gareth’s stage confidence and delivery skills are a sheer delight to witness. He’s on at The Stand Comedy Club 2 at 18:50 every night from July 31 – Aug 25 except August 12th, and you can book tickets here.

After the interval we were treated to the whirlwind of comedy dynamite (yes, I know that’s a mixed metaphor) that is Tom Stade, with a Preview of his new Edinburgh show, Risky Business. An hour spent in the company of Tom Stade is a rollercoaster of a white knuckle ride, and you genuinely can’t guess in which direction he’ll go next. We started off in fairly familiar Stade territory with an assessment of the average ages of audience members, and how language can (does) mean different things to different age groups. He has some great material about how the prevalence of computers in the lives of the twenty-somethings and younger is so ingrown that it can lead to severe misunderstandings, and, if you’re as mischievous as Mr Stade, can become delightful weapons in the war of comedy.

I loved his observations about modern travel, and how travel agents are redundant if you know someone young enough to work their way around a computer; and how his perfect holiday must include a waterpark. Another observation that rang true is how there’s only one thing that Mr and Mrs Stade want to go when they go to bed – scroll. And he has a brilliant slant on that old favourite, Mr Potato Head. Trying to review or even encapsulate much of what passes in a Tom Stade set is an impossible task because all his nuggets – big or small – just wash over you and you simply can’t keep track of what he says. You only hope that he can! You always feel that there’s an element of danger in what might happen on stage when he’s on; it gives an intangible edge to the whole proceedings. Wonderfully funny as always; even though this show was still at the let’s chuck ideas in the air and see where they land stage, you just know his new Edinburgh show will be a winner. You can catch Tom at The Stand Comedy Club 1 at 20:15 every night from July 31 – Aug 25 except August 12th, and you can book tickets here.

Many more Edinburgh Previews to come: our next date is to see Scott Bennett and Sara Barron at the Lamplighter on July 8th.

Review – Gareth Mutch and Tom Stade – Edinburgh Previews – The Comedy Crate at the Northampton Town Centre Hotel, 13th July 2023

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Hot on the heels of last weekend’s mammoth and super-successful Comedy Crate Weekender, we’re down for three more evenings of Edinburgh Previews this month, starting with Gareth Mutch and Tom Stade at the newly branded Northampton Town Centre Hotel (that’s the old Park Inn if you’re still working in pounds, shillings and pence). Whilst you couldn’t say that the room where the show took place was glamorous – and indeed our two performers started their acts by acknowledging as much – it is functional, comfortable, and adjacent to a good bar and excellent toilets so you can’t say fairer than that.

First up was Gareth Mutch – a name new to me, preparing for his Edinburgh show Belter. He’s a big, likeable lad, nicely self-deprecating about his self-confessed “odd” shape, and he uses his relaxed story-telling style to deliver some fun material about someone he met on a train and a creepy front-row comedy club fan. Very much in Preview territory – as he would be the first to admit – so not every punch landed, possibly because we were an older demographic than he is targeting. He’s great at setting up a rapport with the audience and found just the one fellow vaper – good old Balpreet. He has excellent material concerning vaping, by the way, all of which was fresh and fun and which I can’t remember hearing mentioned by another comic, so it’s a good subject to develop! An enjoyable and entertaining hour which I’m sure will grow into an excellent Fringe show.

After the interval it was time for Tom Stade, previewing his Edinburgh Show Natural Born Killer. It’s to my shame that I’ve never seen Tom Stade before and boy, have I been missing out. Few comics can aspire to his clearly innate ability to be funny from the very start. I know it’s a cliché, but the man could stand on the stage and read a shopping list and it would be hilarious. There’s very little brushing-up required to make this show Fringe-perfect; he has an amazing rapport with the crowd, chatting with many of us including me (that’s Chris, 63) and my father-in-law aka Lord Prosecco, Bill, 80.) I mention the ages because it’s a vital part of this show – setting yourself in your formative decade and never growing up afterwards. He has brilliant material about the words you can and cannot use today – and it’s not in a GB News-type right-wing moany way but in an incredibly inventive, challenging way that sees the funny side of it all. Packed with superb observations, terrific asides, and way more than a laugh a minute. Can’t wait to see him again!

More Edinburgh Previews ahead – we’ve just booked to see Paul Sinha and Jo Caulfield on Saturday, should be great!