There are some incredibly talented less physically able comedians at The Fringe this year. Basing their material, some more than others, around their experiences of living with their disability they show that although they may be physically less able, they are mentally a lot quicker and intelligent than most other people. We’ve found five to watch.
A word of warning: many of these videos (and links) contain some severely bad language so, if that’s not your cup of tea, it’s best to just avoid them. If it is your cup of tea you should really enjoy these talented comedians doing their thing.
Adam Hills: Happyism
Adam Hills is one of the stars of The Fringe this year. You may well know him as the presenter of the increasingly popular Last Leg on Channel 4. Hill has been a favourite at the festival for many years and although he’s from Australia he’s a real Edinburgh figure. He was nominated for the Perrier award three times in the early noughties and since starting The Last Leg took off during the Paralympics, around this time last year, his star has risen even more.
Interestingly Hills initially didn’t make his disability known to his audiences. He had been performing live comedy for over a decade before he ever made reference to his prosthesis on stage. He said that he felt he could too easily have become a novelty act and that he “didn’t want to be known as the one-legged comedian … I wanted to prove myself as a comic before talking about this.” Now he’s done that he does refer to his prosthesis and even passes in around the audience on occasion.
He’s performing at the Assembly Hall and his Sunday shows are accompanied with BSL sign interpreter Catherine King. He’s just very funny and he has an infectiously likable onstage persona (presumably this is not just a creation and he’s nice in real life too). The Scotsman gave his last show five stars and said that ‘if you cannot enjoy Adam Hills you cannot have a pulse’ .
Lost Voice Guy: A Voice Of Choice / Are You A Technofile? (with Emily Wood)
Lee Ridley, aka Lost Voice Guy, has Cerebral Palsy which means that he can not speak. You might think that this would be an insurmountable obstacle to becoming a stand-up comedian but Lost Voice Guy uses a synthesiser to communicate and what should have be a difficulty has become a source of material (“when I realised I’d never be able to talk again I was speechless”). For instance, he tells the audience he hates it when people make fun of the way Stephen Hawking speaks, adding that “I can really synthesise with him”.
Lost Voice Guy has been described as “a wonderful comedian” by Matt Lucas and “a very funny guy” by Ross Noble who he has supported on tour. It’s incredible to see what he’s doing because it’s so hard to do. In comedy, they say that it’s not what you say but how you say it and that’s something that Lost Voice Guy has had to get around. Compared to most comedians, he has little control over the precise timing of the jokes, since the machine he uses speaks for him. He has to rely purely on really well written jokes such as “I was once in a disabled Steps tribute band… We were called Ramps.”.
He’s performing his own show at The Stand Comedy Club and also performing with Emily Wood during the day at Bar 50. It will be a busy Fringe for him in what he’s described as “the most inaccessible city ever” – presumably because of all the cobbles.
Imaan Hadchiti: Evolution Of iMaAN
Imaan Hadchiti is a Lebanese-Australian comedian and actor. His sets involve a lot on the fact that he is only three and a half feet tall and how other people treat him because of this. He uses hidden camera videos he’s taken to highlight this. Imaan went into stand-up when he was just fifteen years old and won the Triple J Class Clown comedy competition in 2005.
He really doesn’t hold back with his material and doesn’t seem to be concerned about being controversial. Last year, BroadwayBaby.com described Imaan as the “antithesis of cute….Completely Inappropriate”. With his Fringe debut taking in thoughts on freedom and religion (his last show was called Bigger Than Jesus – so you can sort of guess his attitude towards that topic), this can be expected to be risqué to say the least. He’s performing a series of free gigs for Laughing Horse @ Espionage.
Jamie MacDonald: That Funny Blind Guy
“How do you make a Venetian Blind?” Glaswegian comedian, Jamie MacDonald, asks “poke him in the eye”. And “How do you make a Glaswegian blind? Give him two genetically knackered retinas.” Using the stage name That Funny Blind Guy (perhaps because Jamie MacDonald is already the name of a) a Scottish footballer and b) the aggressively deranged second-in-command to Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It), MacDonald weaves his way through the tale of a chaotic mini-break to London, in his Fringe debut.
His set takes in ‘vicious guide dogs; suicidal taxi drivers and the disabled seating area in Heathrow’. The show is on late (quarter past midnight) at The White Horse and is a pretty rude but a very funny take on being blind. It’s hard to include a joke since the whole thing is one big story all pieced together but “as you can see, I can’t” isn’t bad as opening lines go. This is, as they say on the show description, “a triumph of humour over eyesight”.
Tanyalee Davis: Big Trouble In Little ‘Gina
Described as being “the Ferrari of comedy – low to the ground and kind of racy”, 3’6” tall Tanyalee Davis has been popular at The Fringe ever since her 2007 show Little Do They Know. Part of the group Abnormally Funny People, ‘kind of racy’ may be a bit of an understatement for this fiery Canadian performer who really isn’t afraid to talk about anything. In previous years The Scotsman has described her as “a punch-packing stand-up” and gave her old show four stars.
Many of her jokes can be a little bit explicit to put here (although there are plenty in the video below) but she also has some great one liners like “Japan’s amazing – I’m huge in Japan” and “If I was a terrorist I’d be in the Elf Qaeda”. She is an incredibly energetic and witty comedian who supported Frankie Boyle on tour last year. Worth checking out if you can at The Assembly Rooms.