EDINBURGH 2023: Review: CHRISTOPHER MACARTHUR-BOYD: SCARY TIMES, Monkey Barrel

Christopher Macarthur-Boyd is a Glaswegian comedian and this new show Scary Times is his eighth run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He kicks things off with a disclaimer that so far it's been going about 95% well. Which are pretty good odds. 

Macarthur-Boyd gives the impression that this is just an hour of casual chat. A little bit of off-the-cuff comedy. I don’t believe it for a second, the man is a professional and he knows exactly what he’s doing. There are tourists in the audience and he gives a little bit of background about the difference between people from Edinburgh and people from Glasgow. To be fair, he’s absolutely bang on. I believe I said similar last year that the material is great but if you’re from Glasgow you get that wee bit of a bonus, having gnawed your way through a white Russian in Nice and Sleazy’s.

Other musings and anecdotes include the JK Rowling-isation of the city of Edinburgh, a longing for Topman and why he is considered to be so speccy. 

There is a loose through line that we are indeed living in scary times. Everything’s expensive, everything’s a bit shite. He’d like to be able to take his girlfriend on holiday but he can’t afford to. He didn’t realise that women don’t have the same ability to go on late-night walks alone to clear their heads.

There has definitely been a shift in audience behaviour lately and it is unclear whether this is a lockdown effect or the impact Tiktok has had on live comedy. Not so much as a heckle but a random musing is shouted out during the show from an audience member. Macarthur-Boyd handles it well and improvises some material based on it but also offers the advice that it is not really acceptable to interrupt comics mid-storytelling when they are building momentum. 

Christopher Macarthur-Boyd is a consistently brilliant comic delivering big laughs throughout what are indeed, quite scary times.

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