Edinburgh Fringe 2026
The Spencer Jones Experimental Kids Show
Spencer Jones
Genre: Children's Theatre, Comedy
Venue: Pleasance Courtyard The Green
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Beautifully bonkers, deceptively clever and enormous fun, The Experimental Kids Show sees Spencer Jones unleash his trademark prop comedy, musical nonsense and improvisational chaos on a younger audience.
Review
The Spencer Jones Experimental Kids Show is playing at the Pleasance Courtyard, Green throughout the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Absurdist prop-based and musical comedian Spencer Jones makes a departure from his usual stomping ground of adult humour, which has seen him bring productions on and off to the Fringe over the last decade and appear on well-loved panel shows such as 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. This time, he takes a leap into the trickier but sometimes more comically rewarding world of kids’ shows.
Spencer himself greets us as we enter, high-fiving every child who wants to and cracking off-the-cuff jokes from the start. He freely admits that he’s ultimately just reskinning his adult show, just without all the… ‘y’know’. We do know. In fact, it’s the knowing that makes the hour just as much fun for the parents as it is for the kids. Jones is a skillful improviser and although he is clearly reining himself in to ensure the performance is age-appropriate, he’s still smart enough to slip in a number of dual-layered jokes that have the adults in the room chuckling away.
The master of silliness and a true Captain Chaos, he comes across as a man shambling around, accidentally stumbling upon humorous happenings in a room full of junk, randomly pulling items from behind curtains, shabby suitcases and the piles of debris littered across the stage from the outset. Therein lies his real skill. The Spencer Jones Experimental Kids Show feels beautifully spontaneous, driven by Jones’s brilliant improv skills. He clearly has a few set routines, but he is a master of his own imagination within them, finding comedic freedom within the framework he’s given himself.
Bags of chuckles and laughter come from his interactions with various homemade props and wacky live loop-pedal-style vocals. The kids in the room really love and appreciate how bonkers he is. Jones provides multiple opportunities for the children in the audience to participate and is very sensitive to whether they want to or not. His unpredictability and subversion are always appealing to a younger crowd. I took a five and an eleven-year-old and they were equally entertained and engaged.
The Spencer Jones Experimental Kids Show is semi-planned chaos masquerading as complete chaos, delivered by a comedian who understands exactly how funny being utterly ridiculous can be. Bonkers for the kids, clever and absurd for the grown-ups and enormous fun for everyone in between.
