Five of the best new comedy shows to arrive at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe this week

Cardinal Burns, Terry Alderton, Idiots of Ants, Simon Amstell and more

This article is from 2012.

Cardinal Burns

The sketch duo make a triumphant return to Edinburgh after all that small screen success with their E4 show. Among those characters which Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns might have up their sleeves for us are cockney cabbies Terry and Phil, the Office Flirt and a pair of camp paranormal investigators.
Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, 20--25 Aug, 8.20pm, £10--£11 (£8--£9).

Terry Alderton

This ever-popular Essex man drops by with his crowd-pleasing voices, noises, physicality and, it says here, shoes. Last year, we said he gave his audience ‘wonderfully twisted internal monologues’, so there’s no reason not to expect the same again.
Gilded Balloon Teviot, 622 6552, 17--26 Aug, 10.30pm, £10.50--£12 (£9--£10.50).

Idiots of Ants

If you’ve loved the sketchy stuff that the white-shirt-and-black-tie quartet have done over the last five years, then you’ll be in raptures as they produce a kind-of greatest hits. Yes, it’s their ANThology, obviously.
Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 23--25 Aug, 10.30pm, £11--£12 (£10--£11).

Simon Amstell

Just in case his pals Daniel Simonsen and Jessie Cave need a familiar face amid their debut Fringes, here comes one in the shape of the former Buzzcocks host.
Bongo Club, 557 2827, 20--26 Aug, 8.30pm, £16.50 (£15).

School of Comedy

The young comedy bucks return to Edinburgh with a bunch of sketches and characters such as a lascivious Mayor of London, a cockney tearaway called Tracey Emin, some Olympic hopefuls (oh, topical), a scatty meteorologist and a teenage African dictator.
Assembly Hall, 623 3030, 20--26 Aug, 7.40pm, £10 (£9).