The Past - Fringe Review

Thomas Levi
Aug 7
2 min read

★★★★★

The Past is one of the Edinburgh Fringe's funniest sketch comedy shows, blending history, audience participation and wonderfully silly ideas into an hour that barely gives you time to catch your breath between laughs. Fishing4Chips have created something that feels fresh without reinventing the sketch format, proving that you don’t need a complicated premise to make great comedy.

The show transports the audience through different moments in history, each becoming the basis for a new sketch. From the First World War Christmas football match and caveman stand-up comedy to Philip Larkin and the Berlin Wall, history becomes little more than a springboard for absurd comic invention. Audience members are regularly drafted into the action, becoming participants in historical events rather than simply watching them unfold.

Rather than relying on embarrassing volunteers or awkward improvisation, audience participation is simple, playful and keeps the audience invested throughout. It gives each performance its own identity and makes the room feel genuinely connected. There is always a slight risk with this style of comedy that an uncooperative audience could slow the momentum or derail a scene, but the performers are so naturally funny that they didn’t need the interaction to get the audience on board.

The sketches themselves are consistently inventive, and strike the ‘something for everyone’ balance that the greats like Mitchel and Webb, Fry and Laurie, or Armstrong and Miller did so well. That's great sketch comedy: throw enough brilliant ideas at the wall, and the audience will each discover different favourites. For me, the recurring HR representative describing historical landmarks became funnier every time it reappeared, while the Berlin Wall sketch was a masterclass in escalation. History has rarely been this gloriously stupid, and that's entirely the point.

Sean Wareing attacks every character with boundless energy, creating wildly exaggerated caricatures, while Freddie Walker provides a thoughtful presence that grounds the mayhem without ever dampening it. Both understand exactly when to push an idea further and when to move on before the joke outstays its welcome. Sketch comedy lives and dies on timing, and these two never put a foot wrong.

The writing is sharp, the performances confident, and their understanding of comedy is deeply impressive. Someone should be finding a place for these two on SNL UK immediately… they have the talent, the originality and the comic instincts to thrive far beyond the Fringe. If this is what The Past looks like, their future couldn't be brighter.