Ashley Haden is back with his satirical eye, angry words and caustic wit.

"Three shades darker than Frankie Boyle" - The National

"Absolutely merciless. he is terrific" - The Scotsman

"Hidden Dark Gem of the fringe" - Radio Haha, ★★★★★

August 28, 2024    One4Review

Off the bat London’s East End award nominated comic Ashley Haden is a talent, and something you don’t often find at 6pm in the Fringe these days – dark, uncomfortable, well researched political comedy which is also funny and thought provoking.

To make sure the audience knows what they are in for the ground rules are set early and rattles off a gag about the cost of assisted suicide, which hits the mark and a gauge of what is to come.

The doors are closed, let the cynicism begin.

For the first third of the show there is a review from 2010 to present day, – the Tory government standards and the inept alternatives that were on offer at the election
“Brexit – Stupidity Apartheid”
“Lib Dems – They are just imaginary friends, Reform Party manifesto – basically a vision board”

Then Cost of living crisis, housing, anti-vaxers, social media, brat summers, climate change are also dispatched with the same piss and vinegar.

Then you are hit with the really dark stuff – Israel, Palestine, Sudan, poverty. He isn’t exploitative of these terrible events for cheap laughs, it’s more shining a light on the hypocrisy and double standards connected to these events. This is where Haden shines in the blackness. Festival great Bill Hicks would be very proud.

Of course there is time to get everyone back on board with just a little chink of hope. For some of the audience it has been an uncomfortable ride but others it’s just what was said on the tin.

Haden has been compared to Frankie Boyle but I’m seeing more Mark Thomas in this talented youngster, crossed with the cynicism of Neil Youngs “Rocking In The Free World” cranked up to 11.

He’s going places and I can’t wait to see what he does next. Just put him on at a later time. Click Here For Review

August 21, 2024    Chortle

3.5 stars

There’s really no topping Ashley Haden’s description of himself as a ‘dark, bleak, uncomfortable, political comedian’.

Before he gets into the rough ride of his brutal material, he warns his audience: ‘If you have happy memories, do try to hold on to them…. hope is an illusion, reality is pain.’

His pugnacious delivery has echoes of the late Ian Cognito, with vicious gags that punch hard, delivered with an air of unpredictable foreboding.

He’s also been likened to Frankie Boyle, though his nihilism makes the Glaswegian appear to sparkle with joie de vivre. Haden’s jokes are less artful, more brutish and blunt, if you can envisage such a thing.

You laugh because he makes things sound so grim, that’s the only sane response, rather than in admiration of an elegantly crafted punchline. This said, he does come out with the occasional classy gag, which he claims shows he can write them, but it seems he would rather not offer us that easy release from the harsh truth.

We start relatively soft with a few icebreakers about the election campaign – Ed Davey’s publicity stunts and Rishi Sunak doing a prescient press conference in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter – but this, aptly enough, is the tip of the iceberg.

Though driven by a fiery passion, Haden’s material is also well-researched. Tackling the far-right’s ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory, he delves deep into birth rates and the economic consequence of an ageing population. Jokes come at the expense of older audience members, but the comedy plays second fiddle to the political impetus.

That’s especially true in a substantial joke-light section towards the end, calling for more wealth taxes over income taxes, which plays like a paper from the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank but with more C-bombs.

Haden will wade into the Israeli-Palestine conflict, after making great strides to separate attacking the Netanyahu government from criticism of Jewish people – even he doesn’t really want to be cancelled if he can help it. Then he turns his eye toward food banks, terrorism and female genital mutilation with no care for your sensibilities.

A bit about plastic contamination gets a bit garbled in the telling, but other than this, his directness and power of his unbridled cynicism proves an irresistible force. It’s ugly comedy for an ugly world. Click Here For Review