I am about as right-brained and artsy as they come, but my favourite Free Fringe show of last year was Robin Ince's Carl Sagan is my God, a show about science. The best thing about the Free Fringe is that it allows experts to make a whole show out of talking about their chosen field – without the commercial pressure to cater to the general audience and fire off as many gags as fast as possible, comics can afford to be be enthusiastic about niche, geeky subjects, delivering what is essentially a fascinating seminar with a few jokes thrown in.
Dan Willis is a computer programmer turned comedian, and while his comic persona is hardly the most original or side splitting in Auld Reekie, his enthusiasm for his subject is enough to make the basement of City Café well worth a visit. Quite apart from the inherent comedy of a slideshow featuring old ZX Spectrums and BBCs, Willis is an excellent historical tour-guide of a time when clever but awkward teenagers could impress their schoolfriends by hacking the rules of Jet Set Willy. I always like a comedy show that has a proper theme to it, and professionals telling of the absurdities of their trade makes for a surer afternoon bet than the standard mother-in-law-joke crowd. After all, even if it isn't funny, you'll still learn something.
This show is particularly recommended for fellow IT workers; banter between performer and audience about which version of an early Pentium you would have been able to play the first Age of Empires on and the loading times you could have expected on it may go over the heads of some of the less technologically informed. This show was also the first time I've heard a heckle about tenure as a Mathematics professor. Nostalgic tech geeks reminiscing together about old software versions may not appeal to everyone, but will appeal massively to some. While the gag rate was low and the non-computing material was perfunctory, I was pleased to gain an education about an unfamiliar world. Who knew that we'll have to go through the Y2K thing again in 2020? (It's my pension plan, says Willis). The lesson here: write what you know, even if you're writing in binary.
