We watched the midnight to 1am shift of the Radio 1 Fun and Filth Cabaret on Tuesday 16th August 2011, so you didn’t have to. Pay us later…

Our two hosts – Scott Mills and Nick ‘Grimmy’ Grimshaw – take the stage.

They are wearing typical Edinburgh Festival garb; white dress-shirts, red tail-coats, black trousers and black half-height ‘top hats’. Oh and red clip-on bow-ties.

The circus has come to town.

Grimmy has a greasepaint moustache drawn on his top lip in an effort to disguise how much of a twat he is. It doesn’t work, obviously They are joined onstage, for some unfathomable reason, by David Hasselhoff.

Thankfully, after a completely pointless link, the first entertainment of the night is introduced: Australia’s ‘Axis of Awesome’.

These musical piss-takers are actually good. No, really. Their ‘How You Write an R&B Love Song’ is intelligently constructed and pokes its tongue at the entire R&B genre. Yay!

Daniel Someone is the winner of the Unfunniest Comedian Ever To Have Appeared On-stage Anywhere On The Planet During Edinburgh 2012. He’s ‘On at The Assembly, George Square’, which is a great public service announcement to everyone in Edinburgh. Clearly a warning to stay well away from there.

Daniel quickly demonstrates that he has good things in front of him. Like puberty. Unfortunately, being a comedian isn’t one of them. He does a gag about a snake turning in to a stick in front of him and caps the story off by describing himself as ‘like Moses in reverse’. Because Moses was famous for his ‘Parting the Red Sea Turning Snakes In To Sticks’ trick. Twat. I’ve had more laughs puking my stomach-lining up after a severe case of food poisoning.

Next up is an act whose name is masked from everyone by a brilliant piece of unintelligible announcing. She is a red-wigged woman who takes off some of her clothes and, to the backing of ‘Don’t Touch Me There’, points to a small box attached to her groin. As she gyrates away, her fingers start heading southwards to her small box.

Do you get it? Groin? Small box?

Anyway.

She puts her fingers in to her small box and pulls out

Yawn.

Sorry, I nodded off there.

What’s this?

She’s now got a tablespoon and a hammer?

She puts the handle of the table-spoon in to her nostril and (gently) hammers the spoon in to her box  face?

I can’t help wondering how she first discovered this talent. Did she announce to her parents, one day, ‘Folks, you know that nose-job I’m saving up for? Well we can spend the money at McDonalds because I’m going to give myself a DIY Rhinoplasty with a spoon!

Or something like that, probably.

The back-announce to her act sounds as if her name might be Lily Something Chaos, but because our hosts are intent on turning English into Unintelligible Mess, the actual meaning of what they’ve said turns in to vapour quicker than an MP’s promise.

Next on-stage is Angelos Something, we’re not told if he is related to Daniel Something or if it’s coincidence they have the same surname.

Angelos looks like a better-dressed member of Shameless, he clutches a Sainsbury carrier-bag as some kind of prop.

Angelos shambles on to stage and shambles his way through his ‘act’. This consists of interviewing David Hasselhofffffffff. Am I alone in thinking that this is surreptitiously turning in to the David Hasselhoffffff show?

David looks scared and so he should.

The banality of the questions starts out low on the dickhead scale with ‘Have you any money?’ It gets lower with ‘Were your parents impressed with your job talking to a plastic car in Knight Rider?’ and descends in to the realms of near-racism with a fantastically hilarious an offensive sweeping generalisation that the entire population of Germany ‘doesn’t matter’.

That’s nice.

Halfway through the Angelos Unintelligible interview with The Hoff, this viewer starts to wonder how this section fits under the ‘fun’ category of entertainment, because as sure as hell it doesn’t fit under the ‘filth’ label.

Unless we’re supposed to consider the likely state of Angelos’ underpants.

Top flight entertainment from your BBC.

Yawn.

Note to the producers: Scott’s newly-adopted catchphrase ‘Get Involved’ isn’t working. The skin-crawling theme music to the show isn’t working. And Grimmy isn’t working. Full marks for consistency.

Next out is Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer, of whom I have high hopes. He does posh rap.

He does ‘You got to fight. For your right. To party’, in a posh accent – just like some kind of looter about to bother Weston Super Mare in 1933.

Mills’ co-presenter Becky joins him and raps on-stage. Becky bears a striking resemblance to Matt Thing off of Little Britain.

[pauses for a think]

Here is the cleverness in the BBC adopting the word ‘Cabaret’ for this show, because, as anyone in ‘the business’ will tell you, Cabaret is a hit-and-miss affair.

Some of it will be good (Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer, Axis of Awesome) and some of it will be complete and utter shite (everything else).

Meanwhile.

Next on-stage are some decidedly dodgy-looking Dancing girls who gently fanny about a bit to the tediously unentertaining ‘Get involved’ catchphrase.

They are back-announced as The Ladyboys of Bangkok and The Hoff clearly indicates he’d be interested in checking them out.

Eeew.

Cut to Mr Punch who comes live to the Edinburgh stage from his bedroom in Canterbury in Kent, via the magic of the webcam.

Jesus this is utterly fantastic television.

And by utterly fantastic I mean depression-inducing, wrist-slitting.

One positive thing that has come out of the evening is that the message seems to have got through to Grimmy, that he should keep his mouth shut. Long may this ray of sunshine continue.

Mr Punch does a shit rap and the entire audience of The World falls asleep.

The golden rule of cabaret quality aside – the one thing that the production company forgot to bring to this production is atmosphere. Tonight’s show has as much atmosphere as a Christian housewarming party on the moon.

We have more acts still to come, threatens Grimmy.

The very unfunny Daniel Something (Daniel Slut? Daniel Sloth? Daniel Who Cares?) returns to the stage and tens of thousands of people reach for the off button.

Daniel encourages the audience to shout the words ‘Cup-cake tits’ at him (presumably for some kind of sexual gratification).

And just when you think the show couldn’t get any worse, it does, because…

Next out on stage are Taylor and Hayley Hasselhoff aka Bella Vida.

The blonde one is wearing a comedy belly, comedy breasts and a pair of comedy thighs. The brunette is wearing a comedy face.

Neither of them can sing live.

Bella Vida’s live show sucks more than a 30-baht whore behind a beach shed in Pattaya. Which is probably how The Ladyboys of Bangkok made their airfare to Edinburgh.

Eventually, and nowhere near quickly enough, the Hasselhoff siblings take their limp performance off-stage and the five people left tuned in to the show either breathe a sigh of relief, or fart gently in their sleep.

Axis of Awesome returns to wrap up the production and they do it in style with their ‘Four Chords’, which continues to entertain, no matter how many times I’ve heard it.

All too quickly Grimmy walks on to announce ‘This is the Pinnycull’. Fuck me I hate this gormless, talentless twat, but I do admire the way he has carefully cultivated his ability to make any number of words or phrases from the English Languge in to a completely unintelligible noise.

Hoff and Mills take the stage to duet ‘Guy Love’ at each other and the cameramen take a tea-break.

To sum up tonight’s effort, not so much Edinburgh Fringe as Edinburgh Cringe.

Axis of Awesome: very good 7/10
Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer: good 6/10
Everything else: shit 0/10

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