Old Folks Telling Jokes

On principle, you can’t really take issue with the elder statesmen getting their slice of Fringe stage time alongside all the other shiny young students from Oxford. The trouble is, the minute you peg together a bunch of comics under such a blunt demographic as age, you know exactly what you’re going to get: yep, loads and loads of self-deprecating age jokes.

It’s a tedious topic at the best of times and our trio of worn-in standups do little to dissuade the theory. Only brashly cocksure compere Lewis Schaffer comes good with a stream of bolshie provocations about women, the English, the Scots and, well, the entire audience. In an affectionate way, of course.

But then the procession of dreariness unfolds. Octogenarian Lynn Ruth Miller’s set (“You know what you’ve got to look forward to when you’re older? Waking up”) is particularly wearing, concluding with a meaningless rendition of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ with new lyrics proving that—hold the phone!—grannies can be a little saucy too.

At least Peter Callaghan goes off-piste with some mumbled, sub-Tim Vine puns and deadpan dad jokes. The trouble is, he’s just nowhere near as good.

Then Charmian Hughes, who can at least work a story, gets back on-script with the Old Folks dictat: husband slighting, body despairing and forewarning the perils of old age. Message received. If this is the kind of entertainment brought on by the twinkly twilight years, then they’re certainly not something to look forward to.