Self-help and motivational speaking have provided rich pickings for comedy over the years, and do so again in Anna & Helen’s debut Stuck in a Rat. Mind you, these two could joke about practically anything, I’d guess, and make it funny. It’s the way they tell ’em – with a delectable clownish touch and an expert deployment of the straight woman/funny woman dynamic.
Once fellow members of Footlights, it’s the first time Anna O’Grady and Helen Cripps have performed as a duo, a decade or more into their acting careers. I hope it won’t be the last. I loved their faux self-care seminar, inviting us to “hop aboard the rejuvenation train” and haul ourselves out of our rat – or should that be rut, or some undiscovered word in-between? The show considers various means of doing so – travel, exercise, love – in direct address, video and song. (The pair are adroit multi-instrumentalists and singers-in-harmony.)
The joke is that Anna and Helen are klutzes, ill-equipped to fix their own lives, far less anyone else’s. They bump into one another; they try to speak in sync, and fail. Anna is the worst offender; Helen is forever pulling her back into line. And O’Grady plays the fool – wide-eyed, always puzzled by why things aren’t quite working as they should – with a lovely light touch.
Morning shows
Bout
Summerhall, 10.20am, until 25 August. Read the review.
Comète
Assembly Checkpoint, 10.30am, until 26 August
Are We Not Drawn Onward to New ErA
Zoo Southside, 11am, until 25 August. Read the review.
Bystanders
Summerhall, 11.40am, until 25 August. Read the review.
Afternoon shows
#HonestAmy
Pleasance Dome, 12pm, until 26 August. Read the review.
Sea Sick
Canada Hub @ Kings Hall, 12.30pm, until 25 August
Algorithms
Pleasance Courtyard, 12.45pm, until 26 August
F Off
Underbelly Cowgate, 12.50pm, until 25 August. Read the review.
Fishbowl
Pleasance Courtyard, 1pm, until 26 August. Read the review
The Accident Did Not Take Place
Pleasance Courtyard, 1pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Vigil
Summerhall, 1pm, until 25 August.
Beach Body Ready
Pleasance Courtyard, 1.10pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Collapsible
Assembly Roxy, 1.20pm, until 25 August. Read the review
For All I Care
Summerhall, 1.30pm, until 25 August. Read the review
I’ll Take You to Mrs Cole!
Pleasance Courtyard 1.45pm until 26 August.
Art Heist
Underbelly, 1.55pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Like Animals
Summerhall, 2.15pm, until 25 August
The Happiness Project
Army @ the Fringe, 2.20pm, until 25 August
Beat
Pleasance Dome, 2pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Spray
Assembly Roxy, 2.35pm, until 26 August
Ada Campe and the Psychic Duck
The Stand’s New Town theatre, 2.50pm, until 25 August
Anguis
Gilded Balloon Teviot, 3pm, until 26 August. Read the review
All of Me
Summerhall, 3.10pm, until 25 August. Read the review
George Fouracres
Pleasance Courtyard, 3.30pm, until 25 August. Read the review
If You’re Feeling Sinister
Gilded Balloon, 3.45pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Scottee
Assembly Roxy, 4.05pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Lola and Jo
Assembly George Square, 4.15pm, until 25 August
First Time
Summerhall, 4.15pm, until 25 August
The Incident Room
Pleasance Courtyard, 4.30pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Typical
Pleasance Courtyard, 4.30pm, until 25 August
Everything I Do
Summerhall, 4.30pm, until 25 August
The Last of the Pelican Daughters
Pleasance Courtyard, 4.40pm, until 25 August. Read the review
The Chosen
Dance Base, 5pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Daniel Kitson
Stand Comedy Club, 5pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Scream Phone
Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 5pm, until 26 August.
Four Woke Baes
Underbelly Cowgate, 5.05pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Parakeet
Roundabout @ Summerhall, 5.05pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Superstar
Underbelly Cowgate, 5.30pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Janine Harouni
Pleasance Courtyard, 5.45pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Daddy Drag
Summerhall, 5.45pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Snare
Pleasance Courtyard, 6pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Tom Parry - “Parryoke!”
Pleasance Courtyard, 6pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Evening shows
Who Cares
Summerhall, 6.20pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Tom Rosenthal
Pleasance Courtyard, 6.30pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Pops
Assembly Roxy, 6.35pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Toyko Rose
Underbelly, 6.55pm, until 25 August
Kai Samra
Pleasance Courtyard, 7pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Sophie Duker
Pleasance Courtyard, 7pm, until 24 August. Read the review
Jack Rooke
Assembly George Square Gardens, 7.30pm, until 24 August. Read the review
The Afflicted
Summerhall, 7.30pm, until 25 August
The Wild Unfeeling World
Pleasance Courtyard, 7.30pm, until 25 August
John Robins
Pleasance Courtyard, 7.30pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Zoë Coombs Marr
Monkey Barrel Comedy, 7.30pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Lucy McCormick
Pleasance Courtyard, 8pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Traumboy
Summerhall, 8.10pm, until 25 August. Read the review
London Hughes
Pleasance Courtyard, 8.15pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Huge Davies
Pleasance Courtyard, 8.15pm, until 25 August
Josie Long
Stand Comedy Club, 8.20pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Camille O’Sullivan Sings Cave
Pleasance Courtyard, 9.15pm, until 25 August
Simon Brodkin
Pleasance Courtyard, 9.30pm, until 24 August. Read the review
Musik
Assembly Rooms, 9.40pm, until 24 August. Read the review
Courtney Pauroso
Underbelly Cowgate, 9.40pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Jamie Loftus
Pleasance Courtyard, 10.45pm, until 26 August
Catherine Cohen
Pleasance Courtyard, 10.45pm, until 24 August. Read the review
Diane Chorley
Assembly, 11.00pm, until 25 August
Spank!
Underbelly Cowgate, 11.55pm, until 25 August
Times vary
Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
Enough
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
Crocodile Fever
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
How Not to Drown
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
Burgerz
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
Baby Reindeer
Summerhall, until 25 August. Read the review
Ahir Shah
Monkey Barrel Comedy, until 25 August. Read the review
Arthur
Your home, Edinburgh, until 25 August. Read the review
Daughterhood
Summerhall, until 25 August. Read the review
Until the Flood
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
Roots
Church Hill theatre, until 25 August. Read the review
The Patient Gloria
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
I could watch their “glass half full” routine over and over again. Then there’s the moment when Helen, having played a word association game with the audience, asks daydreamy Anna if she’s noted down the responses. The pause – and her expression! – as she weighs up how to answer (shameful truth or out-on-a-limb white lie?) is comic bliss.
Not everything flies: once the gag behind their “best woman speech” skit is revealed, it’s got nowhere to go. But there’s so much to enjoy here, as they peer behind the cheery veneer of the world’s happiest animals, interact time-warpingly with their screen selves (shades of The Pin here) and deliver a hilariously petulant song about losing friends to parenthood. It’s taken a while for Anna and Helen to double up, but it was worth the wait.
• Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until August 26.
• Read all our Edinburgh festival reviews.
