John Robertson: The Human Hurricane

Review by David Cox

Having been a DarkChat reviewer since 2007, and an Edinburgh festival attendee since 1986 I sometimes find putting our itinerary together a little repetitive and time- consuming (although I always love the end result!)

This year we only have 5 full days to see shows, so I thought I would fit in 2 "themed" days to enable us to visit shows and venues we wouldn't normally frequent. On Thursday this was only seeing shows in the "New Town" and on this day (Wednesday) we are only watching "Free Shows". This also allows me to monitor ticket costs as the Edinburgh festival can be an expensive hobby if you are not careful. Previously, if I had put a Free show in our spreadsheet that would be the show I would drop due to tiredness as I hadn't made a ticket commitment.

Our "free" day ended with John Robertson " The Human Hurricane" at the Counting House, and what a way to end the day.

Like Rob Auton, Luke Wright and Jordan Brookes we were fortunate to catch John early in his career, in a Free Show at The City Cafe. We were so impressed with him that we paid the following year to see the excellent "A Nifty History Of Evil" & we even saw "The Dark Room" when it was free. (Whatever happened to that?).

Whilst writing this review (which will start soon I promise) I recalled one of my favourite Edinburgh moments. In 2014, I believe, (before mobile phones were compulsory items) I had to meet my wife to ask her to meet a friend after her show (Robin Ince, I think) to hand over the flat keys on South Bridge. Having completed my mission I struggled to leave the venue as another show had just ended. The only way I could get out was to shake John Robertson's hand and congratulate him on a show I hadn't seen (one for the "only at the Edinburgh festival" story pile).

Anyway, we duly took our seats tonight amongst a far from full audience ( but this was the Wednesday after the Monday/ Tuesday 2 for 1 days) which traditionally is a lower day for audiences. I brought 2 DarkChatters who didn't know about John but warned them that he would be in your face with a lot of audience involvement. I was proved right on both counts and this is what makes him so great. He has attitude, but combines this with a charisma and the ability and energy to start his show at 100% and somehow work upward.

He talks, he rants (he was virtually the only performer to reference the riots in England that were going on and he plays punk banjo. What more do you want?

I suspect the three of us pensioners sitting in the middle of the front row were not his usual demographic but it gave his imagination the opportunity to brand David as "all the Dr Who's there has ever been" , I was the founding accordionist for The Dubliners and he said he wanted to have sex with Thuranie (not his exact words, but she was flattered with the offer). 

And he didn't stop there. He talked to the entire audience (none of this who are you and where do you come from stuff) and all of his ad-libs were spot on. If you want to support the Free fringe and see a unique comedian at the top of his game head to the Ballroom at the Counting House.

Mr R alone made my "free" show day a success so I will definitely repeat the experience next year. He also, unexpectedly, proved to be a mind reader by saying that David probably listens to Pentagle (a 1960's folk group) and I can vouch for the fact that he played a lot of them the night before. John then produced one of my favourite memories of the festival by requesting his sound guy to play Pentagle's most famous track "Take Three Girls" as we left the room..

The "Free" festival is of course nothing of the sort as you pay what you wish and can afford on the way out. At our first show of the day the performers were quite relaxed about it all in contrast with the next act who hinted you should be paying £10 -£15  the cost of a show at the Fringe (he didn't sound very good). Robertson in contrast left his bucket at one side of the stage whilst he chatted to the audience at the other side with no pressure on people about what they should contribute.

So, not only is John a comedy genius who deserves to be better known but he is an all-round good egg.

Go and see 1 of only 3 five star shows we saw this festival.