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Edinburgh Festival Best Show ISH Award shortlisted in 2025. The best-joke-list-bothering, holey-cheese-flinging Falafel is back with another laundry basket full of stuff he hopes you’ll find funny. Including but not limited to: mind reading mic-stands, sausage-based nonsense and art-related buffoonery. It won’t be sensible.

News and Reviews for this Show

August 18, 2026  EdFringe Review ‘What do you do with your pots from Gü?’ are the kinds of important questions in our society that Fringe-favourite Olaf Falafel tries to get to the bottom of in Olaf Falafel Presents: I Used to Work in a Helium Balloon Factory Until they Let Me Go. The show is as silly and stupid as the name suggests, and its bloody brilliant. The show is all over the place in the best way possible, which Falafel manages by insisting ‘fun needs structure!’, providing us with a PowerPoint style presentation that nicely walks us through each segment of the chaos. Despite this, we are still kept in a permanent state of being on our toes, you truly never know where he’ll take things next, but you never want it to end. The aid of technology also allows him to gleefully show us videos that are consistently entertaining and well-placed, including a side-splitting edit of a squirrel and his viral ‘cheese of truth’ which is a gimmick that never gets old. There are also some lovely drawings and use of artistic props throughout which add creative flair that really elevates the show. He pulls from some weird and wonderful sources to structure elaborate setups that pay off later on, but amidst the more high-concept and fantastical moments, he cracks jokes that are so simple but effective they’ll have you tortured thinking, ‘how did I never think of that?!’ Falafel is guilty as charged in having a dad-joke approach to his comedy, especially one-liners, which he refers to as ‘sorbets’, but the sheer inventiveness of his humour means the cheesiness never gets tiresome. With a show inventively packed with everything from Shakira’s Whenever, Wherever, to Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, Falafel is a man of culture who seems to be endlessly inspired and excited by life in a way that is genuinely wonderful to see. He achieves the near-impossible task of creating a show that will appeal to teenagers and adults of any age, it truly embodies every thing comedy should be about. My final message to Fringe punters is to get there early to avoid the disappointment of not getting into what will undoubtedly be a very popular free show this year – it’s a must see! Click Here

August 15, 2026  One4Review Novelist, otherworldly, view-askew story-spinner Olaf Falafel is back. It all begins with a typically weird VT and, from there, logic is politely shown the door. Goths apparently need showers. Jason Statham has balance problems. Dr Bananos’ nursery crimes amuse us. Somewhere along the way, children are advised that, sooner or later, they’ll all have to do things for money that fill them with shame. It is impossible to explain. Jokes arrive with force. One minute there’s a song about Gü pots that will make you gaga, intrusive thoughts that keep you only marginally awake at night, an ode to sausage-on-a-stick self-help happiness, and a perfectly observed idea that fun requires structure. Falafel loves a band reference, and this year is no different. Shakira, U2, Earth, Wind & Fire are all done with such abandon; kids will be searching them out on the way home. Then there are Disney characters painted on the sides of vans, Liam Neeson’s dog ultimatum, and props, songs and video segments that are all perfectly judged. And then he turns up the heat for the final third: Guitar Hero farm animals, a throwaway video sequence on Sonic the Hedgehog hair bobbles, and, of course, the return of Jason Statham, all delivered with the confidence of a man who has spent years building his own Marvel comic universe entirely of his own making. Falafel has become a cult institution at the Fringe. After more than 20 years of gloriously daft shows, he remains one of the very few acts where words such as auteur and genius apply, and in this form, no other act currently in Edinburgh can touch him for sheer universal appeal. Entirely self-funded, fiercely independent and forever marching to the beat of his own bizarre drum, Falafel here is at the top of his game. Brilliant! Click Here

August 13, 2026  A Youngish Perspective Olaf Falafel is perhaps best known for regular appearances on ‘Best Jokes of the Fringe’ lists, fusing intelligent construction with a delightful surrealism. I Used to Work in a Helium Balloon Factory Until They Let Me Go – an excellent title – continues this great work in a very silly, very funny, and wonderfully constructed hour. Falafel’s easy presence onstage, comic versatility, and pure glee at his own performance draw you in completely. His central tenet that ‘Fun needs structure’ is achieved with the aid of a PowerPoint – facilitating visual and written jokes – and skilful pacing. Falafel’s calm confidence can make the show look like it’s throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, but everything has a purpose (often serving as a callback). These elements’ primary purpose, however, is to establish the show’s rhythm, which Falafel has honed to perfection. There’s such a variety of comic payoffs: everything from prop comedy to bad puns, and even some political satire. The use of technology opens up even more avenues for humour, often taking the easy joke and then following it up with something unexpected. What Falafel calls his “sorbet” jokes deliberately change the pace to cleanse the palate, often making a uniquely askance observation (“surely not everybody was Kung Fu fighting?”). There’s a warm sense of camaraderie to the show. You’re never far from a chant or a song, or indeed a version of Guitar Hero played with dog squeaky toys! Falafel also impishly challenges the audience to guess jokes ahead of time – sometimes an image onscreen foreshadows the punchline, and an early routine sees increasingly obscure ways to introduce children’s nursery rhymes, becoming more obvious until the audience clicks. With typical creativity, these clues are delivered as a press conference where a comic character admits past misdeeds. That’s perhaps the best way to capture Falafel’s vibe – a delightfully naughty children’s entertainer. This review uncharacteristically quotes several jokes, because for this show spoilers simply don’t matter. There’s such a volume and variety of material crammed into the hour, and Falafel’s creative delivery is strong enough, that knowing a joke in advance hardly diminishes it. Anyone who wants to laugh will find a lot to love in this wonderfully silly, intelligently written show. Click Here

August 13, 2026  The Skinny Olaf Falafel returns to the Fringe with a high-calibre hour of silliness, buffoonery and general mucking about. With two shows this time around, Olaf Falafel has been a Fringe mainstay for years now; there’s seldom a list of ‘Fringe Jokes of The Year’ that don’t include one of his contributions. As I Used to Work... kicks off, the children’s author and stand-up immediately scans the audience to detect any audience members that don’t fulfill the '12+' age criteria. After finding several children scattered across the audience, instead of policing this, it turns into a routine. He goads the kids to lie about their age, while slipping a few new ‘safe swear words' into their vocabulary. This essentially summarises the upcoming hour for Falafel. It isn’t entirely PG, but it’s certainly childish. It isn’t much longer until the comic has strapped a banana to his nose, adopted a vague European accent and is waggling a sausage attached to a fishing rod at the audience. You start to think that, maybe, this is going to be one of the sillier shows at the Fringe. Falafel is shamelessly and joyfully daft, in a way that is genuinely refreshing and contrasts to other Fringe options. It’s a palette cleanser (or sorbet, as Falafel asserts) to have someone take so much glee in simple buffoonery. Using a packet of sausages as panpipes, squeezing an array of dog chew toys to the tune of Johan Strauss compositions, or catapulting Jason Statham’s severed third testicle through eight fiery rings, it is impossible not to get enraptured by Falafel's boundless whimsy. It isn’t all prop comedy: there’s several of his trademark one-liners, an enactment of his viral ‘Cheese of Truth’ videos and a cameo from fellow Fringe luminary Mark Silcox. Whether he's riffing about Shakira, yoghurt pots or Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, Olaf Falafel is the crazy uncle that everyone wants to hang around. Don’t let the silly songs or absurd concepts fool you; mucking about of this calibre is no mean feat – and nobody plays the mischievous jester better than Olaf! Click Here

August 8, 2026  Edinburgh Reviews Olaf Falafel has returned to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with his latest slice of absurd stand-up, I Used to Work in a Helium Balloon Factory Until they Let Me Go. Performing at 2:30 PM in the Main Room at Laughing Horse @ The Pear Tree (Venue 257), the award-winning comedian delivers a daily hour of chaotic silliness through 30 August. Fresh off a nomination for the ISH Edinburgh Comedy Best Show Award, Falafel continues his reign as one of the festival’s most reliable purveyors of joyful nonsense. Running for 60 minutes on a free, non-ticketed, pay-what-you-can basis, the show officially carries a 12+ age rating. However, parents should exercise caution before bringing younger family members. While Falafel is well known for his children’s books and YouTube art tutorials, this Fringe hour contains frequent swearing and an extended bit centred around Jason Statham’s hypothetical third testicle. Absurdity With Architectural Precision The noisy courtyard at The Pear Tree clears out quickly as the crowd packs into the comfort of the venue’s Main Room. Falafel wastes no time setting an unpredictable pace, using physical props, low-fi visual gags, and deliberate silliness to keep the room off-balance. The energy is high, built around absurd props and sausage-based nonsense that demand total buy-in from the audience. Rather than remaining isolated on stage, Falafel actively involves the room throughout the performance. Audience participation is a core component of the chaos, with spontaneous interactions driving many of the biggest laughs. Central to the madness is the legendary Cheese of Truth, a holey slab of dairy that Falafel asserts to have personally invented (discovered?), which makes a welcome appearance to pass surreal judgment on the room. Art-Related Buffoonery and Sharp Craft Beyond the physical comedy, the show highlights Falafel’s distinct background as an illustrator and author. His art-related buffoonery features heavily, blending clever visual setups with sharp, rapid-fire joke writing. Every prop or slide feels carefully constructed to subvert expectations, balancing high-concept ideas with delightfully lowbrow execution. The intimate layout of the venue amplifies the collective hilarity, with snorts of laughter echoing across the tight seating rows. “This is an hour of unadulterated, masterfully crafted nonsense,” captures the spirit of the performance. The show proves that delivering completely stupid comedy requires exceptional discipline and precision. Overall Olaf Falafel delivers a five-star masterclass in ridiculousness that fully deserves its status as a Fringe staple, provided parents heed the warning about the adult material. Click Here

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