Ayoade Bamgboye: Swings and Roundabouts review – commanding comic’s thrilling debut

Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghDrawing on her experiences moving from Nigeria to the UK, this livewire standup delivers a multifaceted first fringe showThe fringe is nothing if not a place where unknowns can write their names across the stars. Ayoade Bamgboye does so in a matter of moments in her debut show, Swings and Roundabouts, which makes instantly clear that, wow, here’s a voice you can’t help but listen to. It’s a slippery one, mind you: the show is delivered now in a Nigerian accent, now in BBC Radio 4 RP, with no guide to the shifting register. It’s ticklishly destabilising, and wholly justified by a show tracing the Londoner’s journey (cultural, geographical, even metaphysical) from Africa to the UK.That makes it sound like a conventional fringe debut, but it’s not, or at least, not to begin with. Thrillingly, Bamgboye pitches us straight into Swings and Roundabouts – no context, no handrails – with a giddy story about eavesdropping on a quarrel in a Co-op. Her command, the confidence in her delivery and how she makes the whole room her own, is quite something. There’s no point denying that the set then reverts more to fringe-rookie type, flashing back to the story of where Bamgboye has come from and who she now is. In our host’s case, that’s an oldest (or in Yoruba culture, youngest) twin, unusually interested in the circumstances of audience members’ births, with a name meaning “crown of joy” and a superiority complex to match.At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 24 AugustAll our Edinburgh festival reviews Continue reading...

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