Richard Hanrahan @ Just The Tonic, The Grassmarket Centre

Possibly the most hard working comedian at this years Fringe, Richard Hanrahan has dedicated himself to the perverse act of creating a show that is perpetually evolving throughout its run. Slowly gathering speed, the show has already snowballed into something special and must be seen to be appreciated. Hanrahan asks the simple yet difficult question to answer: what is comedy? Or more accurately: what is comedy to you? As you might expect different audiences have different answers, the results of which he is keen to test out for the benefit of future crowds.

This is a show that will never be the same twice. With a sizeable audience, Hanrahan becomes a lecturer in a tech-heavy production, who is regurgitating his findings. This seems to be one of two roles he takes on stage. The other is of a fact finder, whose mission is to survey poorly attended shows for nuggets of comedy gold.

Hanrahan seems slightly overwhelmed with a larger audience size tonight, the cameras used to capture the wisdom of previous and sparser attendances only ever capture snippets of his ongoing jokes. But, ultimately ...Is Doing This  is definitely one to see this year – and again and again if possible.

---

Richard Hanrahan is Doing This, Just the Tonic, The Grassmarket Centre, 2-26 Aug (not 13), 8.30pm, £4-5/PWYW

Scroll on to read more of The Skinny's 2018 Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews; click here for a round-up of all the best reviews from this year's comedy and theatre programmes