After years of listening to their dodgy songs and buying their albums online, I got to see Amateur Transplants live as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. My first Fringe show as well, in fact.
For those who don’t know, Amateur Transplants is made up of two medics – Adam Kay and Suman Biswas. They sing very rude songs full of swearing and bodily functions, many based on popular hits. Often they’re not complete songs – just enough to tell a joke with a punchline. As a result in the 60 minute show they probably played in excess of 40 songs.
I was surprised to see that many people at the show obviously hadn’t heard many of the songs before. For them it must have been a great treat – very much like watching a stand-up with a good routine for the first time. Having said that there were a good few new songs in the mix, including some ad-libbing from Adam that threw Suman for six.
They involve the audience a bit as well, with Adam strolling through them during a couple of songs. Made a little less easy due to the venue basically being a “lounge where you want” one with few seats and more beanbags!
I can say that, especially given the low ticket price, I was definitely not disappointed by the show. Very funny, more laughs per minute than I’ve seen at many “regular” comedy shows. Plus Adam and Suman wander around afterwards to sign CDs and the like. Don’t forget that Macmillan Cancer gets a share of all their profits.
I’ll leave you with the following YouTube video of their original “hit”, London Underground. WARNING – it contains lot of swearies!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYVJSOFZxDE
