Hosted by Coco Sarel (@cocosarel)

Starring Henry Rowley (@henryrowleyy), Steven McKell (@stevenmckell), Ayamé Ponder (@ayame.p)

Review by Annie Aslett

TikTok and the Fringe have a complicated relationship, to say the least. A portion of Fringe-goers will roll their eyes at the mere mention of the short-form video app and move swiftly on. There’s much love for the application’s involvement with the festival after its partnership last year, but for many, it still comes with an intrusive sting.

Now: four TikTok creators who, as their posters loudly proclaim, with over 7 million followers between them, are bringing an hour of stand-up to the Festival Fringe for the first time. Lord, have mercy on them.

Our host @cocosarel, aka Sarel Madzebra, makes reference to this fragile relationship as soon as she comes on. As an audience member, you can’t help but worry that this might be, for lack of a better word, a bit bad. How will short-form online content, created to go viral, translate to a stand-up set at the Edinburgh Fringe? Particularly at the intimidating Cabaret Bar venue at the Pleasance Courtyard where all seats are zeroed in on an exposed corner stage.

As Madzebra does her intro set, introducing her co-stars one by one for their fifteen-minute sets, we wait with bated breath for the prospect of each to crash and burn and then they… don’t. Quite the opposite. Sure, Madzebra’s preliminary attempt at crowd work comes over more like watching gauche small talk, but, as she explains to us when she first comes on, they’re all just having a go. Both Madzebra’s set and the rest of the show only improve from this slightly shaky start, and the audience is thoroughly entertained for an hour of remarkably decent stand-up.

Madzebra is our compère for the afternoon, and she provides a warm, charming palette cleanser between acts; famous for her Love Island debriefs on TikTok, she has a wonderful knack for making her audiences feel like they’re having a gossiping session with their best friend.

Steven McKell starts the show proper with high energy and a high kick. He introduces himself as Fifoncé, Fife’s answer to Beyoncé (Sasha Fife?), and he’s not wrong. McKell exuberantly regales us with tales of growing up with his seven siblings, in a way that people with siblings will find heart-warmingly relatable, while those single-child households will be left puzzled as to how they didn’t get each other done for assault. Mckell’s stage presence is captivating, and charismatic and receives some of the biggest laughs of the night. 

McKell is followed by Ayamé Ponder, who is quick to reassure us that she is going to be amazing. And she is. With the stage presence of someone who’s been performing live for much longer than her few weeks, her tongue-in-cheek faux arrogance is undeniably irresistible as she tells us all about herself and her (in case you missed it) 2.7 million-strong following. The highlight of her set comes as she relays some of the random nicknames that her friend group have assigned to each others’ romantic conquests.

Henry Rowley rounds out the show with some of his tried and tested TikTok characters (Tilly, Juniper and Minty get views for a reason). Again, Rowley has done a great job translating his shtick for the stage – his brilliantly physical moments of character work fit organically in his set, rather than feeling like isolated crutches. The only slight blip was a piece of audience interaction with a teacher, which will undoubtedly teach Rowley to pick and choose which anecdotes to follow up on.

The stigma of the TikTok branding may continue to put audiences off but is likely to drive in just as many relevant audiences. But that’s more of a reason to take the chance and not allow these promising young stand-up entertainers to get overlooked. Although, with initial expectations not the highest, a pleasant surprise and enjoyable evening is far from the worst thing for an audience to feel as they leave your show. Knock, Knock is a solid one-hour set of character comedy, interactions, and the opportunity to catch some of the small-screen stars on the stage before they inevitably transition to a bigger one.