Comedy and Issue 582

Jimmy Carr

9 Aug 2007

With his short sharp shocks, Jimmy Carr has outraged and amused audiences around the world. He tells Brian Donaldson why no one has the right to be hurt by a bit of wordplay

Punt and Dennis

9 Aug 2007

It’s quite astonishing that Punt and Dennis, one of the household names of British comedy, have never quite performed a live show in Edinburgh as a duo.

Frankie Boyle

9 Aug 2007

In some ways it would be difficult to imagine an encounter between Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr, what with them being, arguably, the two finest gag tellers in contemporary British stand-up comedy. How, you wonder, can they have a chat when they must be…

Stewart Lee

Confrontational comic getting grief from his mum

9 Aug 2007

It’s almost impossible to imagine that once upon a time Stewart Lee was in a creative and critical bunker. But after doing the Fringe for two decades he can look back on those days with wistful fondness, even remarking during this set that he half…

Rebecca Drysdale

An alternative and arresting set

9 Aug 2007

It’s not often that a comedian invites the audience to join in a chirpy singalong about children drowning in the Titanic disaster. It’s even rarer that it has the crowd in stitches. But then it’s not often you see a comedian like Rebecca Drysdale.

Wil Hodgson

Ex-wrestler grapples with mainly excellent materia

9 Aug 2007

Profiles don’t come much more distinctive than Wil Hodgson’s. With a meticulous pink Mohawk, kohl-rimmed eyes and camp/punk cargo trousers, he looks like a Viking berserker crossed with a highlighter pen. To add to this fairly splendid confusion of…

Kristen Schaal

Whispering genius cobbles together a hit

9 Aug 2007

The Assembly Rooms appears to have been putting up a determined campaign the last few years to platform a string of quirky female American comics with offbeat dispositions all of their own. Wendy Spero and Maria Bamford made inroads with varying success…

Reginald D. Hunter

Sprawling set from comedy icon

9 Aug 2007

One of the problems with the Fringe is that us reviewers often need to get in early during a run while comedians may take the month to refine their material so that the show we see on the 3rd is rarely the one performed on the 20th. It’s worth pointing…

Waitress

(12A) 107min

9 Aug 2007

Jenna (Keri Russell) is a career waitress. She tends tables in a dead-end town in the deep south of the US.

Hitlist - the best Fringe comedy

9 Aug 2007

Stewart Lee Still surfing on his own wave of post-Springer glory, the 41st Best Stand-Up Ever delivers a routine would rocket him further up that chart if they had another poll today. Hilarious and confrontational. UdderBELLY’s Pasture, 0870 745 3083…

Phil Kay

Impish, semi-mental charm

9 Aug 2007

For the uninitiated, the first breathless minutes of the bedraggled, beardy and rambling Phil Kay’s routine are like watching a homeless dope smoker who has accidentally wandered onstage. But as he ricochets through his tales of shoplifting, smuggling…

Laurence Clark

Raising chuckles and awareness

9 Aug 2007

Thousands hit the Fringe every year with the aim of busting perceptions, but it’ll be hard to find someone who achieves this as thoroughly as the charming Laurence Clark, whose approach veers between being warmly funny and making us feel as…

Simon Brodkin

A one-man comedy club

9 Aug 2007

In this age of panel gameshows and 15-minute slots on Radio 4, a solid hour of stand-up is simply too strenuous for performers and audiences suffering from an attention span bypass. Simon Brodkin thinks he’s found the answer to this thorny issue. The…

Ian Stone

9 Aug 2007

A regular on the national comedy circuit, Ian Stone’s usual 9.05pm crowd are more likely to consist of chattering stag dos and leery hen parties. But the skills he has shaped to deal with such baying crowds make putty of a gently merry, receptive…

Limmy

Hit and miss character affair

9 Aug 2007

Delivering character and sketch comedy with a distinctly Glaswegian accent, Limmy has built himself a considerable following with his World of Glasgow podcasts, and followers are packed into every corner of Stand II to see his first live shows. But…

Tony Law

Time-travelling surrealism

9 Aug 2007

As well as starring in theatre show Killer Joe, a trailer trash thriller with a cast of actors and comedians, Tony Law has what appears to be a stand-up show. It’s called Revenge of the Dog of Time and the Fringe brochure promises ‘random good fun’.

Idiots of Ants

Sketches and skits with style

9 Aug 2007

A live sketch show is a notoriously difficult thing to pull off. We allow stand-ups to have lulls in their hour but with a parade of sketches we expect each one to make us wet our collective underwear. A stand-up has time to develop a stage persona but…

Ivor Dembina

Free fun with a lewd slant

9 Aug 2007

Those looking for some high-minded cultural reference may not get the tagline for Ivor Dembina’s show: Jewish Comedy: Free At Last. If truth be told, the veteran Jewish comic has something of a penchant for the age-old anti-Semitic stereotype of the…

Charlotte Hudson & Leila Hackett

Fresh sketches and bouncy tales

9 Aug 2007

Charlotte Hudson and Leila Hackett’s lively performance and British beach setting perfectly reflect a Blackpool-style summer: slightly tacky and full of tongue-in cheek exhibitionism. Fake seagulls call in the distance as a parade of characters accost…

House of Windsor

Regal sketches with crowning glories to come

9 Aug 2007

With last year’s debut as the Future, Jonny Sweet and Joe Thomas received some rave reviews and an awards nomination before ending the summer being ensnared by one of the country’s powerhouse comedy PR companies. This year that soaring promise will…

Seymour Mace

9 Aug 2007

If Seymour Mace was a superhero he would be called ‘Comic Book Man!’ and his special powers would be making a nerdy slide show seem entertaining and hilarious. It doesn’t sound impressive, but fortunately Mace’s Where’s Batman? is far more inventive…

Micky Flanagan

9 Aug 2007

Stand-up at the Fringe may be viewed by some as a young person’s game, but there’s surely room for the more senior of our comedy talents to shuffle on to Edinburgh’s stages. At the tender age of 44, Micky Flanagan isn’t ready for his Zimmer frame quite…

Andrew Maxwell

9 Aug 2007

There comes a point in every comic’s career where he or she must decide whether they are going to stay the joker forever or grow up and move onto doing something respectable for the rest of their life. Andrew Maxwell had a brief shot at British TV…

Paul Sinha

King of the comedy world

9 Aug 2007

Paul Sinha has a simple recipe for enjoying life. He wants us all to remember those fleeting moments when we felt like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. While Sinha’s King of the World moments are rather more everyday than balancing on the prow of a doomed…

Russel Howard

9 Aug 2007

Russell Howard shows a remarkable amount of restraint against what appears to be a natural inclination to gab with his audience. Other than to mock the odd crazy laugh, he concentrates on his material, which is an ability which the crowd requires in…