Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Sheeps / Mhairi Black

Sheeps, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★

This is the first new show that Sheeps – Liam Williams, Al Roberts and Daran Johnson  – have produced in six years, but they say The Giggle Bunch (That's Our Name For You) is their last. Having gone their separate ways some years ago, the trio have gathered together for one last time to say farewell to their fans.

Keen followers will savour every minute of the show, of course, while neutral observers might pick holes in some of the hour's content. Sheeps have always played with – actually disregarded might be a better description – the rules of sketch comedy, and this hour proves no different.

In the first sketch a confused dad rages that he's read somewhere that Superman is gay, and that threatens his whole life view. As the sketch ends, Johnson leaves the stage, leaving Williams and Roberts to discuss how it went; the scene mutates not once but twice as the trio explore every angle in it.

Sheeps jump through the fourth wall and back again a few times, hinting that their farewell is due to a past bust-up (but they're pals again now). There's some terrific fun to be had with imagining what it must be like to date Lara Croft, there are a couple of musical interludes and a conversation in the House of Commons about alpacas (with perhaps the best payoff of the show).

The group acknowledge the passing of time by suggesting that their moment has come and gone, and in the future comedy sketches will be written by AI. They then perform such a skit and it's suitably awful.

There are big laughs in the hour yet, as so often with sketch comedy, it's a mixed bag. But fans will love it.

• Until 25 August

Mhairi Black, Gilded Balloon @ The Museum ★★★

When Mhairi Black was elected in 2015 she was 20 and the youngest MP in the House of Commons. It's fair to say she had an uneven experience – she was appointed deputy leader of the SNP at Westminster, but also made a few political enemies, some of them in her own party – before she stood down at the July election.

Now she is proving herself a natural entertainer with Politics Isn't For Me, which she describes as a “ruthlessly honest look at politics”. Actually, it's a mixture of score-settling, stand-up comedy and a lecture. Or “live therapy”, as she dubs it.

Black says this won't be a TED talk – rather a NED (non-educated delinquent) talk, referring to her working-class roots. (It must be said that some commentators more au fait with the West of Scotland's social strata suggest the ex-MP, a graduate of Glasgow University, is rather more middle-class than she claims.)

She quickly proves herself to be witty, clever and acerbic as she talks about her family, her ADHD and why she entered politics. She even, remarkably, addresses the accusation made some years ago that she was rubbing cocaine on her gums while sitting in the House of Commons chamber; she tells us in fact she was licking chocolate from a bar that had melted in her jacket pocket. As Francis Urquhart, a fictional member of the House might say, I couldn't possibly comment.

The first half is fun, but the show loses any momentum as Black decides what her audience really want is a lecture on how the House of Commons operates, in particular its voting system. She devotes an inordinate amount of time to it, complete with a slide show.

Black has the smarts, the gags and the stage presence to do stand-up should she choose. But please, no more lectures on the ayes and noes.

• Until 25 August

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