Frankie Boyle - The Voice Of Black America, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->
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Your support makes all the difference.Frankie Boyle's career of late has been following a skyward direction. Already well-known to Scottish audiences from The Live Floor Show, he recently crossed the border with BBC2's Mock The Week. In my personal comedy firmament, Boyle's role at the Festival has been to reconfirm that sometimes all you need to be happy is a man swearing and being abrasive into a microphone. It certainly helps erase the memory of a faint-hearted sketch show. Fey comedy, meet your cure - even if it is wearing a voluminous pink Ozwald Boeteng suit.
Unashamedly a Scottish show (the title, The Voice of Black America, is a nod to Boyle's desire to be a Celtic Richard Pryor or Chris Rock equivalent), the references may be specific but the warm-up jokes are recognisable to any audience. Consequently a lot of them reveal such pearls of information as women in Dundee apparently have a dubious moral reputation. Oldies, but in Boyle's hands these jibes still have shine.
The Boyle arsenal has plenty of weapons, many are more sophisticated though equally blunt. If the Government gets the young to stay in school longer hours, who is going to pick up the kids of adolescents? Top of the pile perhaps was his observation that no one believed that Braveheart star Mel Gibson could carry off being a Scot but look at him now, "an alcoholic and a racist".
Until 28 August (not 14th or 21st) Booking: 0131 556 6550
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