Ed Gamble returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with his new show Stampede where he doesn’t take any nonsense from those pesky cauliflower pizzas, or his girlfriend for that matter. With several television appearances including Mock the Week, Drunk History and Russell Howard’s Good News behind him, Gamble performs a set with unexpected turns that are mostly successful.

The show gets off to a good start with pre-show banter involving a stag do and coconut bra. Gamble interacts well with the audience creating a buzz and getting the energy up at the start of the show in the packed venue. His descriptions and gestures make Gamble a great storyteller on stage, providing context to make effective jokes that the audience enjoys. His material covers the middle-class struggle, where owning a food processor is reserved for royalty and comical tangents. Previous jokes crop up throughout the show in an attempt to create structure and increase the laughs. It works sometimes and at other times falls flat.

Unfortunately, the show starts to lose traction as cauliflower and Gamble’s former life as a curvy man take over the content of the jokes. The fat jokes that keep coming up get old and it would be great to see Gamble push his material further. Talking about lifestyle blogs and healthy eating are funny initially, but Gamble comes back to health nut jokes time and time again, leaving the audience wanting more from the scattered feeling show.

Gamble is a good comedian, but Stampede just feels luke warm.