There are certain comedians who want to make you believe that they’re not “allowed” to make jokes about “anything” anymore. That life is so hard for a privileged, straight white guy. That woke culture is destroying comedy. Yet up-and-coming British comedian Finlay Christie, who brings his new show Champagne Casanova to this month’s Edinburgh Fringe, is proof that the people making those claims were probably just not very funny to begin with.
In his nightly set at Monkey Barrell Comedy, Christie kicks things off by setting the scene. Yes, he has rich parents, which meant he was going to be either a DJ or a comedian. He checks to see who else in the room is a rich kid, in a moments of audience interaction. Only one raised their voice to the question, a young man sitting next to me. There’s a big difference between city rich and rural rich, he points outs. But thankfully, Christie digresses, the true evil found amongst the billionaire class is helping give your average upper middle class millionaire family a better name. And, don’t worry, he has trauma like the rest of us, and things were pretty hard in the womb.
What he doesn’t tell you though is that, in spite of only being in his 20s, he has been refining his craft for the better part of the last two decades. He started on the children’s comedy circuit – something that I didn’t know was a thing – and won So You Think You’re Funny? in 2019, as its youngest ever winner. And if it wasn’t for the pandemic slowing the momentum, things may have exploded globally for him by now. But his career remains young, his social media followings stacked, and if his Fringe set is anything to go by, I don’t think it will be long before everyone knows his name.
And the reason is simple: Finlay is very good at what he does. The man knows how to craft a set. Be it through telling stories that link back to earlier moments and push an overall theme, audience interaction or a pun for the sake of it, his sharp 50 minute set was clever and full of laughs. He manages to find humour amongst topics that lesser comedians either avoid entirely, or butcher through ignorance and prejudice. Jokes about trans people, 9/11, incels, fuckboys and more were all on the setlist. And they landed. They worked because he never punches down and he’s not pushing boundaries for the sake of it.
He also doesn’t linger amongst the more controversial topics. After all, he seems to find as much joy in timid humour (see his joke about a Hawaiian shirt, which he said was his favourite of the set), and bad puns, as he does in self-deprecating stories about getting robbed in the US, or why the British need to Empire again. And his tangent on North Korea was probably the funniest thing I saw at the entire Edinburgh Fringe.
There were some jokes that didn’t quite land on the night, like one about trickle down economics through an incel lens, or another about Korean food. Though I thought both were brilliant. But he knew how to read the room, address that it didn’t work, and move on. That’s how you do it.
Finlay Christie is proof that if you’re good at what you do, and you don’t punch down, you can still make jokes about just about anything. It gives me a lot a hope for the next generation of comedians, of which he is surely one of the shining faces of.
I’m so glad I caught this rising star in action before he truly blows up. Don’t miss this show if you have a chance to see it.
FOUR AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Finlay Christie: Champagne Casanova performs nightly (except Tuesday 18th August) until 30th August at Monkey Barrel Comedy. For tickets and more details, head HERE.
Photo by Rebecca Need-Menear
