Having only been on the comedy circuit for a few years, Kevin Bridges started early at the tender age of seventeen, building an impressive CV. A finalist of So You Think You're Funny? in 2005, he's also supported a Karen Dunbar sell-out and has been cropping up on TV recently, appearing on Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow and Live at The Apollo to great response.
Still only at the tender age of twenty one, Bridges is a born stand-up with a natural, casual style who oozes confidence without self-important arrogance. His unstarry, down-to-earth approach and warm up banter with the crowd immediately has the eager audience on his side, as his conversational approach feels like having a pint down the local with the funniest guy you've ever met. On stage barely a minute, the Clydebank-born comic had already created rapturous ripples of laughter and is great at coming up with one-liner rebuttals.
After a few moments a little into the set when Bridges' seemed to lose his bearings, he returned with a skilled and assured delivery, creating a show that brings a fresh take on familiar ground in an interminable torrent of both beautifully crafted and crass idiom.
Bridges broaches a wide variety of subjects: the homoerotic and idiotic undertones of army recruitment, politics, embarrassing school life, the abuse of a kettle and a hilarious account of ‘Hedge Porn'. These mordant anecdotes are sprinkled throughout with his brilliant scrutiny of the quirks of his fellow Glaswegians, hounding the seedy, violent underside of the West Coast and edging toward the border of vulgarity, but he holds his balance and never balks.
It's not easy to perform at the Fringe with a hyped up buzz around you, but Bridges effortlessly pulls it off, his Chipmunk features varying between deadpan blankness and a bemused eyebrow raise, which only adds comedic value to his solid material.
Times: 9-31 August (not 17 August), 8.45pm