Janine Harouni, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★
Olga Koch Monkey Barrel ★★★★
Olga Koch's opening segment deals with bisexuality and her first threesome in some decidedly evocative language. That's what turning 30 does for you, she suggests – allowing her to engage in a more adventurous attitude to life and a more sex-positive one to relationships.
Flat & the Curves, Pleasance Dome ★★★★
Flat & the Curves – Katy Baker, Charlotte Brooke, Issy Wroe Wright and Arabella Rodrigo – perform a gig-style musical comedy show with risqué material about what it means to be a modern woman. And there's a generous side helping about the inadequacy of men, too.
Rob Auton, Assembly @Roxy ★★★★
Rob Auton has previously done shows around a theme – the colour yellow, hair, the sky, to name a few - because, he says, he can become a little bit obsessed with a subject. Now, though, he wants to do his most personal show yet, hence The Rob Auton Show.
Amos Gill Gilded Balloon ★★★★
Krystal Evans, Monkey Barrel @The Hive ★★★★
Ania Magliano, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★
When Ania Magliano made her Fringe debut last year, her show was rightly garlanded with four- and five-star reviews. She sounded like an original voice on the comedy scene and this year her show, I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This, sold out its entire run before the festival opened.
Ed Byrne Assembly Rooms ★★★★★
Ed Byrne has frequently referenced his loved ones in previous shows but this new hour is one he would never wanted to have written, as it was prompted by the death of his younger brother, Paul, last year. Its title, Tragedy Plus Time, is taken from an aphorism attributed to Mark Twain about the definition of humour.
It's takes a confident comic performing only her second show in English – her second language – to joke near the top of the hour: “I didn't know I wasn't as funny in English.” Urooj Ashfaq also told us she would get upset if the audience didn't like her – but she shouldn't worry. Her confidence proved to be justified.
