RATING: 4/5
Sam Lake: Cake will be playing every night at 9:50pm until Sunday, 28th August at Pleasance Courtyard – The Cellar.
EDINBURGH welcomes another debutant this year, as Sam Lake brings a refreshingly open, honest and uncensored show to the Fringe.
This year marks the 30-year-old comedian’s first time at the Festival, and whilst still fairly new on the comedy circuit, he certainly has the makings for a future star.
Meandering onto the stage whilst drinking a glass of rosé wine and clad in a t-shirt referencing the iconic Come Dine With Me moment, “What a sad little life Jane”, Sam already gained a few chuckles across the audience.
Delightfully camp and unapologetically open about his life, Sam opens his set with material referencing his realisation that he is “becoming a man” – because he’s started making (albeit questionable) noises whilst working out at the gym.
The self-described “nasty little bitch” makes a point of acknowledging his audience and he wasn’t afraid to poke fun at various audience members – I myself was appointed his “rosé administrator”, essentially being charged with telling him when it was time to drink.
Whilst being self-aware and openly acknowledging the audience’s reactions to his humour, there was a slight vibe of Sam being overly eager to impress.
Understandable given this is his first time at Edinburgh Fringe, but he could benefit from just a little less reliance on the audience’s approval.
It’s a hard scale to balance.
Nevertheless, this hiccup doesn’t falter what is otherwise an impressive and at times gut-bustingly funny debut.
The show covers an array of topics in its one hour runtime, but the primary focus is on Sam’s engagement and subsequent marriage to partner David.
Sam’s likeable personality and sassy nature go hand-in-hand in his delivery of stories, whether it be his partner gifting him a mug on their second anniversary, or his running joke of an encounter with a bold and brash individual at a gay bar.
His down-to-earth, relatable brand makes it very much feel like this could easily be a friend of yours telling you a bewildering story down the pub.
His style of humour is very much anecdotal comedy, with the entire show being comprised of these stories.
Aided by slideshow pictures of himself, his partner, friends and family, Sam keeps the mood lighthearted, the theme casual and the jokes punchy.
Sam takes no shame in delivering some pretty crude humour at points, which felt like it gained some embarrassed reactions, but I personally found it hilarious.
The overarching theme of the show, as Sam says himself, is about reassessing your goals when things don’t go how you planned, given the original plan for their wedding was cancelled due to Covid.
This theme is an honest and respectable one, but it felt as though it wasn’t really apparent nor explored as a theme until the final 10 or 15 minutes of the show.
Regardless of this, I was left creasing with laughter at points and caught myself smiling along to Sam’s storytelling more than once.
Sam is a fine comedian and has potential to be a star on the scene. A little more polishing and some fine-tuning of his set will ensure that.
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