3 To See variety shows

The Bye sisters (Maddy and Marina) host Siblings And Family Friends (Pleasance Dome, 9, 16, 23 August, 11.20pm), a trio of nights involving acts from across the Fringe genres. They won’t actually be appearing as slightly spooky puppets but wouldn’t it be amazing if they did? Now very much a C venues staple, The Electric Cabaret (C aquila, 2–27 August, 11.45pm) has a tasty blend of circus, jazz and speciality acts for its alternative latenight Fringe experience. Dolly Diamond’s Rather Large Variety Night (Just The Tonic At The Caves, 15–26 August, 6.40pm) guarantees campness and fun as this UK-born Australian drag diva hosts lip-syncing, burlesque and risqué songs. As usual, Julian Clary managed to get the final word by dubbing Dolly as ‘Lorraine Kelly on crystal meth’.

from the likes of ABBA, Elvis Presley and Whitney Houston, this drag queen promises a 50-minute set of guttural laughs and audience interaction. If past performances are anything to go by, then you can expect a night of debaucherous entertainment (Son Of A Preacher involved throwing around 17inch dildos in the air). Lungs has been known to not shy away from difficult and taboo topics, some of which stem from Chasland’s personal life, bringing an element of pathos to the otherwise electrifying upbeat showtunes and dance routines. Nevertheless, this Fringe set first and foremost combines comedy with celebration, as Leather Lungs strives to find higher love through an ‘explosion of song’.

Leather Lungs: Higher Love, House Of Oz, 4–27 August, 9.30pm.

From TV darling to homelessness, bankruptcy and well-documented battles with alopecia and mental health, there’s not much that life hasn’t flung at Gail Porter. As she prepares for her Fringe stand-up debut, Claire Sawers finds the likeable and no-bullshit Edinburgher just wants others to know they’re not alone

Gail Porter is sitting on a tartan blanket in her London flat, talking me through some of the curveballs that life has dealt her, from the surreal to the cruel via the downright daft. Her rescue cat Ziggy comes and goes from her lap, rubbing slowly on Porter every time she passes. ‘I’m bald but also covered in hair,’ Porter eyerolls, giving Ziggy a warm squeeze.

The TV star and mental-health advocate is describing getting a phone call at work a few years ago to say her dad had just passed away. They’d spoken a few hours earlier. After dealing with the news of his sudden death from a brain haemorrhage, Porter made an emergency trip to Spain and managed, with difficulty, to bring her father’s ashes home on the last flight before the country went into lockdown (she scattered them in the sea at Portobello, where she was born and raised). ‘After takeoff, this air hostess asked me if I’d like a glass of prosecco. Harassed but relieved I’d made it, I looked over at dad in the chair beside me, or rather his ashes, and said, “we’ll take four please”.’

Fifteen minutes into our Zoom call, we’ve covered cremation, having her phone hacked by a tabloid, a phase when she slept rough, modelling jobs, social media and drag queens. By 30 minutes, the very likeable and compulsively real Porter has given me her mobile number and invited me for a cocktail when she’s in Edinburgh.

‘I have to allow an extra hour when I go out,’ she says. ‘I end up chatting to my neighbours or someone I don’t know in Sainsbury’s. I normally end up hugging someone. Yesterday two elderly women were telling me about their friend who lost her dentures.’ Blethery and bright eyed yet balancing everything with a healthy dose of cynicism, there’s barely any filter on the chat, but no bullshit either.

Porter doesn’t do phoney bravado, nor does she do self-pity. She just tells you what happened; shrugging, laughing, once almost crying but not quite. In the 2019 documentary Being Gail Porter (which went on to win a BAFTA), she revisited some of her favourite jobs, including being the vivacious TV presenter of Fully Booked and Top Of The Pops during a phase of selfharm and extreme loneliness. The documentary showed her to be a passionate campaigner for many excellent causes close to her heart (eating disorders, alopecia, animal rights, homelessness), as well as someone still openly struggling with anxiety and self-doubt. It also covered the incident Porter believes she is most famous for; when lads mag FHM projected her naked image, without her knowledge or consent, onto the Houses Of Parliament.

‘I think I’ve pretty much told everyone everything by now,’ she deadpans, while explaining why she’s bringing her debut Fringe show to Edinburgh. ‘I’m sure some folk in the crowd will be yawning like, “yeah, we already know that Gail!”,’ she adds, self-deprecatingly. ‘Doing my own stand-up show is a bucket-list thing; it’s personal. My mum took me to Fringe shows every year. It’s not for my friends; we’ve discussed all our problems together by now anyway, and my brother won’t come because he can hear me tell those stories anytime for free. But I do want people to hear that they are not alone. If they are smiling but also struggling, they can come and have a good cry. I’d like to make people smile too.’

The night before our interview, after a pre-Fringe preview in London, two girls waited behind to see her. ‘They were about 20 or 21, my daughter’s age. They told me they’d really enjoyed the documentary. I said, “oh! Do you not get out much?” They said they appreciated me speaking about mental health. That’s who it’s for.’

While others bring shows to Edinburgh hoping it will springboard them on to starry projects or international work, Porter isn’t raising her expectations too high. ‘I very much doubt anything will come of it, but if I can pay my rent and look after [her daughter] Honey, I’m happy. Friends have given me their house to house-sit in August so that should help me avoid bankruptcy with Edinburgh rent prices.’

When Porter jokes about bankruptcy it’s with the gallows humour of someone who has been there. She slept on benches in Hampstead Heath when work dried up and she declared herself bankrupt in 2017. Her belongings were auctioned when she couldn’t afford to take them out of storage. ‘Sometimes I watch Storage Wars hoping I might spot my stuff!’ she chirps. Although returning to Edinburgh brings back difficult emotions, including grief over her mother’s death from breast cancer, she also looks forward to ‘going home’.

‘Whenever I get off the train in Edinburgh, I know I will get a hug; from someone who works on the trains, a passenger, someone who went to school with such and such. It’s a Scottish thing. In London you get the foldedarms thing in comedy clubs. They sit there like, “make me laugh”. There’s nothing I’m afraid to cover in my show, I don’t care what people think. OK, I’m still a sensitive person, but if there are haters, that’s the nature of life. I’ve heard it all before and I have to take it on the chin.’

As someone who has been very public about episodes of bad mental health, Porter plans to avoid Edinburgh Festival crash-and-burn by swimming regularly and watching her beloved crime TV shows to relax. ‘I hope to have fun while I’m there and, of course, I’m looking forward to letting my hair down when it’s all over!’

EGG are back and, it seems, sillier than ever. This comedy duo chat to Marissa Burgess about the joy of reuniting, forging new ways of working, and laughing about toast

The ease of Anna Leong Brophy and Emily Lloyd-Saini’s friendship is evident in our evening chat over Zoom. As Leong Brophy notes, ‘we should have had wine’. That relationship is very much a driving force behind their latest sketch show Absolutely Fine. Though both are working actors, the last couple of years have taken Anna to Netflix and Emily to motherhood, but they’ve carved out time and space to present another EGG show.

It’s their third after 2016’s EGG: Static and 2018’s Richard Pictures, and one that has their renewed connection at its core, cultivated after time spent apart. ‘We were struggling to see each other but you can’t shortcut making shows about being really close and bonded, vulnerable and raw with each other,’ says Leong Brophy. ‘By making the work, you have to do the life stuff to get there.’

But having reunited, something special happened with that bond. ‘We were so surprised when we started working together again after nearly three years off from doing any live stuff,’ Lloyd-Saini explains. ‘We were just having loads of silly fun, the dynamic between the two of us had changed, but in this lovely way where we go, “oh, this is who we are, this is who we are in this show”. It just got better. It’s become apparent to us both that a lot has changed, actually. And that’s also a wonderful thing.’

Out of this renewed energy sprung a fresh confidence in their creative process too, as Leong Brophy elaborates. ‘In years gone by, we would have a torturous writing process. This time it was just like, “what is the stupid joke that Emily just told me that is really making me lie on the floor, laughing my ass off?” Back in the day, we would go, “OK, well, that’s enough of that. Let’s do some work”. And now we’re like, “oh, this is the work”. We should just follow our nose and just follow this really, really stupid thing.’ LloydSaini picks up on the point: ‘we couldn’t have made the show at any other time. And I love the dynamic between onstage Anna and Emily now. We know each other inside and out.’

The pair met while both performing in BattleActs!, the improv group that Leong Brophy created, but were particularly drawn to each other when they discovered they shared a similar irreverent sense of humour. ‘Years into BattleActs!, we were at the Edinburgh Fringe and Josie Long was doing a gig,’ recalls Lloyd-Saini. ‘She told a joke about toast; I burst out laughing and Anna burst out laughing. And the whole audience laughed, and then moved on. And then about five minutes later, I looked at Anna and she’s still laughing at the toast thing. And I thought, “she’s my people”!’

EGG: Absolutely Fine, Pleasance Courtyard, 14–27 August, 4.50pm.