FEDORA-HATTED comedian Ashley Haden is one of the gems of the free Edinburgh Fringe – the type of show you would just not see on TV.
For the more kind-hearted viewer, Haden is proof that stand-up comedy should be classified in the arts because it surely is not entertainment. If you liked a younger Frankie Boyle on Mock The Week or have heard of Anthony Jeselnik, Haden will most likely make your evening.
Over the top, bleak and satirical, Haden gives a tour of his most sinister thoughts that are sure to keep the audience between intermittently chuckling and aghast.
The show is also deeply political, giving viewers a holistic lefty education from the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill to the Lebedev honours and the relative morality of disembodied heads.
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Haden’s show has yet to attract his target audience in great numbers – a sweet spot of vice-filled spectators somewhere between The Thick of It fans and train-crash enjoyers.
Haden knows that his stand-up isn’t for everyone and takes pleasure in delivering increasingly difficult-to-hear shibboleths that weed out the room till he only has the audience he wants. Haden has yet to target his jokes for the Scottish viewer, and when he accuses his audience of self-indulgent apathy to the UK Government policy, it might just be self-indulgent disinterest in rUK domestic politics.
The suggested donation for Ashley’s show is £6 but – as he says – for the traumatic memories it will give you, it’s worth so much more, obviously, for those who like that sort of thing.
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