STAMPTOWN
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
★★
“Fringe is an excellent space to push boundaries, but to my mind, Stamptown distastefully oversteps them”
Do you remember Rosamund Pike’s ‘Cool Girl’-monologue in Gone Girl (2014), based on Gillian Flynn’s book? The novel explains that the Cool Girl is someone who ‘adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex’. Add Stamptown to that list. From the novel: ’Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want’. I’ll confess I really wanted to be a Cool Girl about Stamptown, but the two stars that top this review are a testament to my shortcomings. An infamous staple of the Edinburgh Fringe, Stamptown provokes in all the wrong ways.
The show’s bad boy ringleader is the American Jack Tucker (real name Zach Zucker), who displays remarkable energy amidst the chaos. He is mostly unfazed by the flurry around him (every ten minutes or so, a group of about 15 men burst onto the stage and dance like they are in a 2016-Justin Bieber music video), and the only thing that breaks him out of his showman’s haze are frequent gunshot sound effects that leave random performers around him lying face-down on the floor. Charming and self-deprecating, Tucker’s jokes are disjointed but derive their humour from the fast pace at which he fires them at the audience. Given that their punchline is often a sound effect, the tech team (led by director Jonny Woolley) does a stellar job at keeping up with him.
Tucker is joined by a whole host of performers. It is tempting to describe rather than analyse the acts because Stamptown clearly resists interpretation. On this particular night, the show includes the able juggler Joe Fisher and a number of comedians. Martin Urbano manages to joke about femicide, domestic violence, and child pornography within about a minute. Be a Cool Girl I think, misogyny is funny, right? Every once in a while, a giant called Cory Peter Lane comes on stage and bashes a can with a hammer, spraying the beer in the general direction of his mouth. Guitarist Bonavega, dressed only in bright neon yellow hotpants, makes out with a bemused Jack Tucker, at which point the host’s hysterical partner/last night’s prostitute (Erin Farrington) makes an entrance. She’s the ‘don’t you hate it when your girlfriend’-joke (which did feature), personified.
There are two female variety acts: Elf Lyons, ‘a woman on the edge’, circles the state in confusion as her dress increasingly creeps her shoulders. I tell myself to give the show the benefit of the doubt: surely it will include one woman who is not emotionally disturbed? All hail, there comes Betty Grumble — but to no avail. The final act of the show, she quickly strips off all her clothes and sticks a flower down her vagina. Be Cool. But amongst the roaring, drunken crowd I feel uncomfortable and sad. Meanwhile, Grumble draws arrows on her body and writes ‘fuck’ on her belly with lipstick. She lets Tucker spit out his water over her as she does a widelegged handstand. She is a Cool Girl.
It’s fair to say that this show wasn’t for me, and based on the reactions in the crowd, a lot of people very much felt like it was for them. Fringe is an excellent space to push boundaries, but to my mind, Stamptown distastefully oversteps them.
STAMPTOWN
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Reviewed on 14th August 2025 at Beyond at Pleasance Courtyard
by Lola Stakenburg
Photography by Renee Dominguez (from previous production)
