There were more than 1,800 different comedy shows to pick from at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018. But which of these, according to critics, were the best?
As part of our annual coverage of the festival, we log every review for every comedy performance. This year we collected up more than 4,700 reviews from 135 different publications.
Here are the shows from the comedy section of the programme that were reviewed at least 8 times and managed to average over 4 stars across those reviews. Alex Edelman is top of the list, with a very impressive tally of 14 five star reviews amongst his press list.
Click on any name to see the full list of reviews.
We would like to stress our analysis makes no distinction between established broadsheet reviewers and blog sites run by students and their differing views on what a five star show is; plus - due to the nature of the way the press operates - there is a bias in this list towards already established and acclaimed comedy acts who are able to attract more press attention. Therefore a number of 'hidden gems' will doubtless have been overlooked.
This year Austentatious and Police Cops in Space both got five stars in every review they received, but were only reviewed three times each.
British Comedy Guide's review data is collected and analysed by Ian Wolf.