1 week ago
‘I’d never told the same joke twice!’: the explosive rise of Ayoade Bamgboye, Edinburgh’s best new comedian
The Londoner from Lagos wowed the fringe with a show about language, family and cross-cultural identity. She talks about dread, dreams and her bid for ‘controlled chaos’Before her first Edinburgh fringe run last summer, Ayoade Bamgboye put a question to her comedy friends: “How do you debut?” She recalls their advice: “You introduce yourself, and there’s a point of view. There should also be a narrative arc. And you need to establish who you are as a comedian.” This was a lot to hear. “It filled me with dread,” says the 31-year-old. “There’s this recurring thought that you can only debut once. If it falls flat, then you’re just a shit debutante, forever.”Reader, Bamgboye avoided this fate, and then some. A fringe first-timer with a very slender comedy CV behind her, the Londoner-via-Lagos arrived at the festival with a fresh-minted show, Swings and Roundabouts, and left clutching the prestigious best newcomer award, as formerly won by Harry Hill, Sarah Millican and Tim Minchin. (She...
Events