Edinburgh Fringe Review: George Ryegold ****

Nominated for the ‘Malcolm Hardee Award’ for comic originality this year, Ryegold’s debut show is an accomplished offering. He takes the character of a doctor awaiting a hearing due to some form of misbehaviour, but despite his dark persona, the audience warm to him easily. Ryegold’s finest skill lies in his use of the English language, employing grimace-inducing medical terminology, laced with a constant barrage of hilarious similes, such as his description of inflamed testicles being like a pair of ‘waterlogged scotch eggs’. The frequency of these similes doesn’t dilute their impact either, as each one, though perhaps expected, is disturbingly brilliant and unpredictable. The show rarely dips in terms of laughter, with two fantastic moments coming from a prolonged mime of groping testicles, ‘like an executive stress-ball’, and a simple, yet brilliant call-back to the line, ‘all over my Nike trainers’. The end of the show seems slightly abrupt and anti-climatic in accordance to the rest, and the show lacks any major underlying themes, but this isn’t a necessity, and overall, this is a fantastic debut from George Ryegold.

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