A rip-roaring romp through timeless classics

Thirty years ago I saw Ivor Dembina walk onto a stage in north London and announce to an unsuspecting crowd: “Right, let’s have the Hatikvah” (a 19th-century Jewish poem and Israel's national anthem). It was an early sign of the path he was looking to tread.

One of my favourite old jokes from this show is about a boy who comes home from school and excitedly tells his father: “Dad, Dad, I got the part of the Jewish husband in the school play!” His dad looks at him and says: “Couldn’t you get a speaking part?”

The backdrop to the hour is how Dembina gets a gig at a synagogue and is implored by the rabbi not to make jokes about the Holocaust, Israel, money and sex. These requests clearly fall on deaf ears and Dembina gets himself deeper into trouble whilst being repeatedly reminded of his father’s warning to “watch that mouth”.

Now in his 8th decade, the London comic – who won the 2019 Editor's Pick of the Fringe Award – has been gigging almost as long as these jokes have been around, yet you can’t help but laugh as if you’re hearing them for the first time. Politically, however, Dembina can be a hard pill to swallow, depending on your definition of free speech. His other show, This is Not a Subject for Comedy, which is also playing at the Fringe, was performed in Tel Aviv and Ramallah.

Dembina, who has proved himself as possibly one of the hardest working comedians out there, also comperes at the Hampstead Comedy Club in London every Saturday night. So if you can’t make it to Edinburgh, you know where to find him, and I highly recommend that you do.

By Mark Bloom

Old Jewish Jokes runs until Sunday 28 August. 6pm. Pay what you can. Laughing Horse @ Bar 50, Edinburgh, EH1 1NE. edfringe.com

This is Not a Subject for Comedy runs until Sunday 28 August. 1.15pm. Pay what you can. Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, Edinburgh, EH8 9DD. edfringe.com