“A riot […] one of the funniest offerings of this year’s Fringe”
This is part of a series of shorter reviews from Edinburgh Fringe, August 2026.
“The Past” is an immersive historical sketch show that takes us all across time, beginning at the very start of it all, as comedy act “Fishing For Chips” take to the stage as a pair of fish wondering what life would be out of the water. As they take that “one small leap for a fish” onto dry land, so it begins – and across the next hour we are treated to sketches that reimagine the tyranny of Genghis Khan, the Great Fire of London, the First World War Christmas football match and Bob Geldof writing “Do they know it’s Christmas”.
This is all the height of silliness. Each sketch begins with an announcement of a date, and as the double act take to the stage, we are immediately trying to second guess where they are going and figure out the punchlines before they reach them. Occasionally we guess correctly, other times it comes from out-of-field yet is still satisfying nonetheless. There are a couple of characters that appear repeatedly – a lady from HR pops up initially to complain about the sudden erection of the pyramids, and later reappears to complain about the erection of Stonehenge. There are a pair of German girls that also appear multiple times after accidentally throwing their beachball over the Berlin Wall.
For the majority of this performance, it is all fairly family friendly, which makes one particularly sweary section featuring poet Philip Larkin stand out and leave a slightly bitter taste in the mouth. It’s a shame, as this otherwise seems to be a good fit for families, reminiscent of ‘Horrible Histories’ but with slightly more obscure historical events. Be warned, there is a lot of audience participation – if you are seated on the front row, you are pretty much guaranteed to be pulled up on stage (and those on the back row aren’t much safer) but for those willing to get stuck in, this is a riot, and proves to be one of the funniest offerings of this year’s Fringe.
Tom Morley, August 2026
“The Past” plays at 2:05pm at Friesian, Underbelly, Bristo Square until 30th August.
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