Cheeky Beggars Banquet - Free

It’s all too easy – and all too dangerous – to dismiss the Free Fringe. A quick flick through the Festival programme, and your eye naturally alights on the household names in the grandstand venues. Waiting for hours to secure a ticket, you congratulate yourself that your insight in selection is matched only by your steadfastness in queuing in the rain. At the other end of the Fringe spectrum is this glorious treasure: a 5pm slot in the sleepy Metropole Café brings an unexpected hour of sheer comedic joy. The Cheeky Beggars are a three-strong troupe of fearless performers who present a series of character sketches from the ‘eccentric underbelly’ of British life. All three are terrific character actors, inhabiting every role with an irrepressible zeal, and are perfectly served by the taut brilliance of the writing. The opening sketch (after the dancing horses, naturally) is uncannily reminiscent of early Pete and Dud – complete with perfectly-placed profanities for unsuspecting coffee drinkers – and the quickstep fire of response and retort sets a galloping pace. Other sketches are terrific in their invention and execution, and all written and rehearsed to the finest, gleaming perfection. The performers’ adroit physical comedy shines in a mime of the unsteady elderly, and echoes from Pinter to Armstrong & Miller, via the League of Gentleman, appear in a set with hugely impressive variety, from a children’s clown whose choice of prop brings fatal consequences to a madcap sketch gleefully pricking business’s obsession with ‘The Markets’. The Cheeky Beggar’s Banquet is a real treat of the Fringe. Three immensely talented performers with a razor sharp script in the corner of a café is what Edinburgh should be all about, and this is unquestionably one of the best shows you’ll see all year – and all without queuing in the rain.