Ed Gamble: Gambletron 5000

• Brian Donaldson
• 28 August 2014

This article is from 2014.

Blokey but non-laddish stand-up from Almost Royals star at Edinburgh Festival Fringe

This feels a little like Ed Gamble’s break-out year. Having worked closely for years with Ray Peacock, he can now be seen on E4 screens in Almost Royal as a (very) minor heir to the throne making a posh twit of himself in the US while here he has come up with his solo debut Fringe hour. And if you are a fan of blokey but non-laddish stand-up, then this will prove to be a solid and enjoyable hour.

Striding on across the whole three feet that it takes to get from behind the curtain to the front of his stage, Gamble chats about first impressions. It’s a nice way in to get people concluding that he probably worries too much but his sense of shame doesn’t prevent him from analysing, in vast depths, one or two differences between male and female masturbation. His air travel material (they’re all doing it, so we should probably stop complaining) is a hysterically horrific story about the amount of eye contact that is socially acceptable when vomiting into a bag.

Gamble is keen to assert his non-macho tendencies and a trip to Tenerife with the lads offers some evidence and him wilting in front of a real badass in Detroit seals the deal.

Pleasance Courtyard, run ended.