What determines whether a comedian’s name will be remembered or forgotten? An ability to make people laugh is always an asset. If you’re capable of reducing your audience to a state where the acronym ROFL can no longer be considered hyperbole, they’ll remember your name. Unless your name happens to be Iain Stirling or Sean McLoughlin. Unfortunately for this talented pair, it takes more than great jokes to make it to the upper echelons of comedy - it also takes a great name. Tom Green. Ed Byrne. Jack Dee. Short. Punchy. Easy to spell. Iain Stirling and Sean McLoughlin? Get outta here - they sound like accountants. There’s something wrong when you have to copy and paste the artists’ names from their website into your review because you can’t remember how to spell the damn things. ‘I-A-N - wait, I-A-I...’ No danger. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V all the way.Sean McLoughlin might possibly be the most awkward, socially-inept, horribly frank comedian ever to lumber onto a stage. He is also a painful genius. If only his audience knew it. He’s the kid who wet himself on the school bus. He’s the gangly teenager who sported a centre-parting. He’s the twenty-something comedian who deserves your affection but will probably never get it because he has a crap name and is riled with self-loathing. This is a man who holds the mic as if he has learning difficulties. The only thing funny about Sean McLoughlin is his appearance. But then he starts to speak. And he’s brilliant. He makes fun of his own penis. Short of castrating himself onstage, he does everything a man could ever do to ensure that no female in attendance would ever sleep with him. Outside the venue, there’s a downpour taking place. There’s so much culture running through Edinburgh in the summer, they have to dilute it with water. If there were any justice however, the streets would be dry and every eye in the house would be wet with laughter.Iain Stirling is a mass of contradictions. He’s Scottish yet handsome. He’s camp yet straight. He’s also very funny. He looks clean and wholesome - the sort of boy you’d take home to meet your mum. Then he opens his mouth and you’re immediately relieved that your mother is not within earshot. He pokes fun at Scottish culture; he also pokes fun at poor Sean McLoughlin. Of the two comedians, it will be Iain Stirling who goes further. By rights, it is the other man on the bill whose instantly forgettable name should be up in lights. Half of the audience don’t get him. Half of the audience will never appreciate the brilliance of the show they just missed.
