Jeremy Paxman’s exit from Newsnight was in line with his candour as a presenter: clean cut, no nonsense and controversial. His talents, though, don’t lay dormant in a country home in Kent; he’s not whiling away the hours watching angling channels and scrutinising Evan Davis.

Jeremy PaxmanJeremy Paxman has delighted with his one man show [Eamonn E. McCormack]

No, he’s at the centre of stand up comedy and theatre in the U.K – the annual Festival Fringe in the picturesque setting of Edinburgh. Daunting it may have been, but Paxman has managed to transfer his dry, acerbic wit from anchoring BBC 2’s flagship news broadcast to manning a stage solo in a one-man show. 

More: Jeremy Paxman Hitting Edinburgh Fringe With One-Man Show: PAXMAN

“While far from a personal hour, there are insights into the off-screen, mild-mannered, Paxman. He rhapsodises about fly-fishing and the peaceful proximity to nature it brings, he admits shamefacedly that he "can be quite strident sometimes" and his conclusion offers a surprisingly uplifting assessment of the human race, if a rather bleak one of journalism,” wrote Alice Jones for The Independent. 

Alex Needham of The Guardian said: “The show included clips from Paxman's most memorable TV moments. The subject "novice" prompted a screening of Paxman's car-crash interview with junior minister Chloe Smith, in which she was unable to answer the question about when she had heard that the government was reversing its policy on fuel tax. Paxman sympathised about the way Smith had been sent on by her Treasury bosses George Osborne and Danny Alexander.”

Mark Monahan for The Telegraph wrote: “As comedy (a categorisation that this venue inevitably invites), Paxo is intermittently engaging stuff; as 'spoken word' (its rather canny official billing in the brochure), it always holds the attention, albeit some passages more than others. Although pacy and slickly produced, it does also, at times, feel too fractured, the victim of its commendably shark-like desire to keep moving."