Edinburgh Fringe Reviews: Family Values

Joanna Griffin has brought along her dear dad Pat in a show-and-tell called Bricking It [★★].

The conceit here is a good one: Pat and Jo are doing a job swap so they can get to know each other better; which means he’ll become a stand-up for a month, while she becomes a builder. This might have made a decent documentary since the Griffins are engaging enough, but the ambling hour on stage doesn’t quite amount to a proper comedy show even though Pat does his best to deploy as many groaners as possible.​

He’s a youthful 73 and clearly has a lot of gathered gags up his sleeves, but 29-year-old Jo spends most of her time shepherding dad around the stage and, as a result, he never really gets the chance to flow. The story of how they got to this point, with Jo press-ganging Pat into clown classes and surprise open-mic nights, confirms the sense you get early on that the naturally-funny Pat should probably just go it alone.

Having sat through that, it comes as no surprise to hear that another dad due to perform with his daughter dropped out at the last minute, leaving Bron Batten to find local replacements in Sweet Child Of Mine [★★]. James Batten, the father in question, had already toured with this show (his daughter's look at her life and times) worldwide, but evidently felt a trip all the way from Australia to Scotland was too much.

The fact he isn’t here adds a maudlin layer to a project that was meant to demonstrate how strong the father-daughter bond can be. Instead of lifting spirits, this feels like a sad eulogy to a man on his way out – especially with the video footage of him and his wife in the background talking about how mystified they are by their daughter’s art projects.

Bron Batten (left) in Sweet Child Of Mine

​More successful than these two is Gran Slam [★★★], which sees permanently ruffled Larah Bross presenting her horny grandma Lynn Ruth Miller. These two aren’t actually real relatives, the show having been created by Keir McAllistair in order to explore the generation gap.

Of course, Miller steals the show with a nicely provocative routine about sex – there are 20 possible men who could have been Larah's grandpa – and also getting old and rubbing up against death. Her brassy shtick naturally leaves the uptight upstart in the shade, but Bross’s slideshow presentation, with pious misconceptions about Miller’s history, ends up feeling superfluous in comparison.

​There’s more familial madness in the attic of the Counting House with the late-night kid-unfriendly Fabulous Punch And Judy Show [★★]. This dark Australian panto recreates the surreal menace of the old children’s favourite but with live actors in fright make-up instead of puppets.

The tale of wife-beating and baby-bashing is re-contextualised to suburban Oz, the traditional morality fable being used to poke at the idea that nasty macho men are repressed homosexuals. It’s a debatable topic but this show doesn’t overly concern itself with psychological digging, opting for the outrageous instead with constant cartoon rape, violence and paedophilia. The four performers are fruity and hammy, which creates the distance this kind of cabaret needs to work, but that and a dearth of decent gags makes it hard to engage with fully over an hour.

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Bricking It, Underbelly Cowgate (Iron Belly), 4-28 Aug (not 16), 5.30pm, £6-£10.50
Sweet Child of Mine, Gilded Balloon Teviot (Dining Room), 3-29 Aug (not 16 & 23), 1.45pm, £5-11.50
Lynn Ruth Miller and Larah Bross: Gran Slam, The Stand Comedy Club 5, 4-14 Aug, 3.45pm, £6-9.50
The Fabulous Punch and Judy Show, Gilded Balloon at the Counting House (Attic 2), 3-29 Aug (not 16 & 23), 9.45pm, £5-8/PWYW