This is one of the more eccentric ideas I’ve encountered at the Fringe (which is a high bar). The idea is that while diners eat at Yo! sushi restaurant opposite the Mound on Princes Street, stand-up comedian Maddy Lucy Dann does her set. There are microphones hidden around every table which measure the level of mirth registered by the diners, so that if she’s funny and you laugh suitably manically, the steel kaiten belt which transports the bowls of sushi whizz around faster.
It is, to be honest, a bit of a gimmick. There’s so much food coming round that there’s never a shortage, and getting the belt to speed up was no easy feat. In fact at several points we brayed like deranged donkeys as we tried to speed up the belt, all to no avail.
The best thing about the whole exercise was Dann, an A&E medic from the Cotswolds who has built a substantial following on TikTok. With her faux-bemused mother looking on, she channelled her inner Pheobe Waller-Bridge and Miranda Hart, with a bit of Jack Whitehall thrown in for good measure. It worked well though: she was lower-case amusing, like the zany little sister who drinks just a little too much and dominates the Christmas dinner table.
As I love both sushi and stand-up, this format worked a treat (there’s no need to book, you just turn up and buy food, so it’s added value). As Yo! want to spread the love, in a special homage to their week-long Maki Me Laugh series, any sushi lovers across Britain can receive a free portion of maki by quoting the code YO!MAKIMELAUGH when ordering at all Yo! restaurants until Sunday 20th August, or if they order via Deliveroo.
2 STARS
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