Comedy at the Fringe: A cheat sheet for Americans

Some of the many Americans in town for the Fringe.
Some of the many Americans in town for the Fringe.

Lots and lots of Americans visit Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival. Hopefully, many of you are here to enjoy some of the delightful British and international comedy acts performing here this month. To help you get the maximum amount of enjoyment out of these shows, we’ve put together a little cheat sheet of cultural references which are popular in Britain this year, which may not be familiar to those of you who live on the other side of the pond. Hope it helps.

  • UKIP is the closest thing Britain has to the Tea Party, headed by beer-swilling Europe-hating Nigel Farage.
  • Most British TV celebrities from the 1970s have recently been revealed to have been serial pedophiles. In Britain pedophiles are often referred to as pedos (PEE-dos) or kiddie fiddlers.
  • Tom Daley is an adorable English Olympic diver (like Great Britain’s modern-day Greg Louganis, had Greg Louganis come out on YouTube).
  • The Commonwealth Games just wrapped up in our neighboring city of Glasgow. They are like the Olympics, without any of the good countries being invited. Plus, there’s lawn bowling. John Oliver does an excellent job of explaining things further.
  • The Scottish Referendum is being danced around in many a stand-up routine. Next month Scotland is voting on whether they want to be independent from the UK (but not the queen) in September. ‘Yes’ voters are pro-independence. Alex Salmond is the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), and is the face of the Yes campaign.
  • Katie Price is a British celebrity of some sort. As far as I can tell, she’s mainly known for having big boobs.

Have we left anything out? Americans (or other foreigners) at the Fringe, are there other cultural references that are flying over your heads? No? Great, now go forth and see some of the wonderful comedy at the Fringe.