Comedy, Issue 584

Knocked Up

(15) 128min

23 Aug 2007

Production assistant Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) gets the opportunity of a lifetime when she is given the chance to present on an entertainment TV channel. One day her producer tells her that her body could do with being a little ‘tighter’. But no…

Ricky Gervais

23 Aug 2007

There really can’t be too many comic names who would get away with performing a one-off gig at the Fringe for an International Festival ticket price, but Sir Richard of Gervais is one such man. With Fame, his obedient fans will be entertained with tales…

Alex Horne

23 Aug 2007

Alex Horne revels in trying to find comedy in the most unlikely of corners. It’s one thing to make fun out of ancient languages (the absurdities of Latin was the topic of his last full Fringe run) but he’s now moved on to the inherently unfunny pursuit…

Alyssa Kyria

23 Aug 2007

Kyria’s talents as a comic actor are evident in this patchy but entertaining character act. Compered by Ariadne the Greek socialite, the show also features an Australian New Age dimwit, a snooty tennis-playing nymphomaniac and plenty more grotesques.

Amsterdam Underground Comedy Collective

23 Aug 2007

If this is Dutch humour at its finest, I’m off to Germany for my laughs. The AUCC may have a cult following back home but there’s little reason to believe that their comedy travels at all well in this lame, tame hour. The supposed heavyweight talents of…

Andrew Maxwell

23 Aug 2007

5 words to describe this year’s show, Waxin’? Beautiful, real life, white lies. 4 stand-ups/comedy acts who you think should be more famous in September than they are now? Rhod Gilbert, Jim Jeffries, Steve Hughes, Stephen K Amos. 3…

Andrew McClelland

23 Aug 2007

In one of the hottest rooms on the Fringe, this madcap Australian sweats buckets trying to get laughs from his show which is about nothing more or less ambitious than his favourite songs. You’ll either adore his mugging immediately or sit open-mouthed…

Andrew O'Neill

23 Aug 2007

Is Andrew O’Neill rock or folk? He has the heavy metal chains but he also has long hair and black framed glasses. He has a V-shaped guitar, but it’s acoustic instead of electric. More importantly, is this a comedy show or surrealist theatre? The answer…

As You Were

23 Aug 2007

Packing them in for their observational stand-up, tag-team Roger Hailes and Todd Womack and have caused quite a stir with a simple comedy club format, welcoming an alternative Fringe guest each night (on this occasion the sublimely smutty guitar duo…

Austin Low

23 Aug 2007

This jovial Aberdonian admits to gulping a couple of litres of fizzy pop every single day. Which perhaps explains his inability to stand still or focus on his material for any given amount of time. There’s a fine show in the caffeine-happy head of Mr…

Brendon Burns

23 Aug 2007

There’s a lot to get annoyed about with Brendon Burns. He’s a bit squealy, a bit shouty, a bit prone to flights of squealy, shouty pseudo-philosophical ramblings. A bit like an Aussie Bill Hicks. A bit 1993. Yet with Brendon Burns, what you are seeing…

Butch

23 Aug 2007

Skinny, effeminate Menno Kuijper has many things, including his wit, style and falsetto vocal cords, but what he really wants is to grow muscles and date army captain ‘Stud’, reasoning that: ‘if Harry Potter can do it, why can’t I?’ In a theatrical…

Chopper

23 Aug 2007

Chopper is the ‘international ambassador of hard’. So claims Heath Franklin as he brings us his successful sketch show character, based on real-life jailbird psycho Mark Brandon Read. The premise is simple: Chopper pops up wherever you least expect him…

Chris McCausland

23 Aug 2007

There are laughs and truths universally acknowledged aplenty in the company of blind comedian Chris McCausland with his tales of planes, trains and shameful ordeals. He takes a pop at bargain airlines and cryptic crosswords, and jollies his way through…

Christina Davis

23 Aug 2007

It would be unforgivable if a show called Sex failed to be funny, given the range of available material. Davis’ set avoids well-worn jokes, managing to be both surprising and intelligent. But Sex ultimately suffers from a somewhat disjointed delivery…

Dan Atkinson

23 Aug 2007

With shambolic hair and stately intonations, Atkinson looks and sounds like an endearingly mad university professor. He uses his amiable and rambling persona to enlighten the audience with talk of Greek philosophy and nicely worked illogical theories.

Dan Willis

23 Aug 2007

Very few things that are this good are offered for nothing. Willis turns a potentially difficult venue to his advantage, ad-libbing off his audience and displaying obvious ease behind the microphone as people from the pub downstairs wander in and out.

David O'Doherty

23 Aug 2007

Due to his distinctive, idiosyncratic style (plus, possibly, last year’s Eddies nomination) David O’Doherty has a strong following and has nothing to prove. Yet, for the sixth year, he serves up the goods. In sharp contrast to O’Doherty’s endearingly…

David Ward

23 Aug 2007

David Ward has certainly had a busy old life, mainly revolving around the gambling addictions which led to him doing time. With a title such as The Whole Truth and Nothing But, all we can do is follow him down his own personal lane of memories as his…

Footlights

23 Aug 2007

Judging by the comedy graduation success of the Cambridge sect, the next Mark Watson or Stephen Fry may well be among the folk on stage, but they’re as difficult to spot as a funny sketch. Still, the cast’s occasional efforts to swallow their own…

Frank Skinner

23 Aug 2007

After a decade away from the stand-up circuit, you’d think that quite a fuss would have been made of Frank Skinner’s Edinburgh return, back in the exact same room where it all started for him with his Perrier-winning year of 1991. Yet when the lights go…

Gently Progressive Behemoth

23 Aug 2007

While the sketch show may have fared rather poorly at this year’s Fringe, the oddball double act might well be having its salad days. Certainly, if the Gently Progressive Behemoth (in the shape of comically theatrical young Cambridge guns Nadia Kamil…

Glenn Wool

23 Aug 2007

If ever a comic had an appropriate surname, then it’s this surrealistic Canadian. You could knit a jumper with the majority of this set, but while it may be overflowing with material, give one of its many loose ends a tug and all the threads would come…

Greg Fleet with Mick Moriarty

23 Aug 2007

Fleet has survived drug addiction and a guest part in Neighbours. Now, with the aid of a double bass and guitar-playing sidekick, he successfully battles tree frogs, a tiny but disproportionately vocal audience and being a punning private dick straight…

Hamell on Trial

23 Aug 2007

Can there be anything worse than someone banging on about how wild life was in the 60s/early 70s? Possibly not, and in The Terrorism of Everyday Life cult hero Hamell tortures the uninitiated with a string of shouty punkish anthems and marginally…

Harmon Leon

23 Aug 2007

This dreadlocked American claims to be The Infiltrator but how he managed to work his way into the comedy section of the Fringe programme is his greatest hoax. He’s on stage for perhaps ten minutes as he plays some largely pointless footage of him…

Hattie Hayridge

23 Aug 2007

She may have one of the slowest openings to any comedy show on the Fringe, but Hattie Hayridge is in no mood to speed things along at any point. This is either fantastically brave or a sign that her nervy stage disposition is not as much of an act as it…

Heroes and Villains

23 Aug 2007

This two-hander by Matt Greene and Darren Richman features a pair of life’s losers not quite winning a huge fortune on the lottery and spending the next hour chatting about girls and their problems with some level of humour and verve. The piece thinks…

Hitlist - the best Festival comedy

23 Aug 2007

Stewart Lee Making a mockery of his low placing as the 41st Best Stand-Up Ever, the co-writer of Jerry Springer: The Opera has had everyone making a song and dance about this year’s show. UdderBELLY’s Pasture, 0870 745 3083, until 27 Aug, 7.30pm…

Holly Burn

Brian Donaldson

23 Aug 2007

There’s a genuine acting talent in Hello, Holly! but a laugh-free script does nothing to save her from dying here. Nice ideas like bringing to life the Angel of the North and a horse actor recur with little weight behind them and Burn’s tortured…

Howard Read

23 Aug 2007

Usually seen performing with his animated sidekick Little Howard, this year’s adult show has Read on his tod with a show that in theory is half-clean, half-dirty and you, the audience, decide which is funnier. The answer is that neither half lives up to…

Ivan Brackenbury

23 Aug 2007

There’s something hauntingly familiar about Ivan Brackenbury. It could be the fact that this inappropriately jolly hospital radio DJ is so uncannily accurate a creation. Or it might just be that, with his headphones on, foot firmly lodged down the back…

Janice Phayre

23 Aug 2007

With Occasional Showers is like a comedy hit and run: over before you know it has begun, it leaves you stunned by an onslaught of gags about relationships, sex and being an asshole. Its finale is so surreal and utterly surprising that not even the…

Jerry Sadowitz

23 Aug 2007

The Sadowitz invective seems ever more bilious each passing year. The victims of his ire in this show range from the English (‘feckless cunts’), Heather Mills (‘cripple’) and even Harry Potter (‘fictional cunt’). Outrageously offensive and with a…

John Hegley

23 Aug 2007

Taking turns to play stern, deadpan schoolmaster and playful kid, poet-comedian Hegley rhymes and sings his way through a beautifully quirky set. Deceptively innocent wordplay on the daft and surreal – zebras, his Folies Bergere dancer grandma and a…

Josie does Edinburgh

23 Aug 2007

Hello again, I’m delighted to report that, three weeks in, I’m surviving. My show Trying is Good has received what I am describing as ‘delightfully mixed’ reviews. I have seen some inspiring shows over the last week, Will Adamsdale and Kristen Schaal…

Kim Hope

23 Aug 2007

A fizzing ball of nervous energy, Hope bounds onstage, announces she’s going to do an hour on the theme of time then proceeds to waste a great deal of the precious stuff gurning and flapping her arms maniacally. There’s a diverting bit of audience…

Kirsten O'Brien

23 Aug 2007

Early on in what feels rather like a light-hearted corporate seminar for C-List celebrities, Kirsten O’Brien talks of her status as a ‘borderline boiler’ and the probability of male audience members having entertained bedroom fantasies for the toothy…

Kitty Flanagan

23 Aug 2007

Opening with a darkly humorous short film (that is almost worth the cost of admission alone), proceedings then lull as Flanagan embarks on an unoriginal stand-up routine that covers accents, children and therapy before lifting things by closing with an…

Marc Maron & Kirk Fox

23 Aug 2007

Edinburgh debuts from experienced comics should always be a dead cert surefire hit. But often those coming from other comedic backgrounds can be left floundering in front of a Fringe audience, unsure of their material and how to unfurl it before a new…

Mark Dolan

23 Aug 2007

An irredeemably bland interactive format, in which the audience does most of the creative work, kiboshes the good offices of Dolan’s natural charm. Showgoers write their problems on paper and the comedian riffs weakly on them, but the fatal flaw is…

Michael McIntyre

23 Aug 2007

Michael McIntyre has the look of someone your mother would like. Unashamedly middle class in his dress, mannerisms and speech, it’s easy to see why he is being heralded as the latest thing in ‘posh comedy’. In terms of demeanour and delivery, McIntyre…

Minor Spectacular

23 Aug 2007

Plested and Brown’s fifth Fringe show is a quaintly conceived offering about Terry, a Hotpoint washing machine repair man who risks life and limb in only half a van working in the not too distant future Watford by Sea. Ingenious scene changes…

Murray Lachlan Young

23 Aug 2007

When only one person in his audience (a polite reviewer) applauds a less than blazing entrance, Murray Lachlan Young positions himself somewhere between crestfallen and carefree. It’s a decade since he was propelled into mini-celebrity status for just…

Neil Delamere

23 Aug 2007

Irish comedian Delamere treats the Fringe to a history lesson on the Vikings and although you’re in danger of learning something, you’ll be relieved to know that it’s mostly a ruse to shoehorn in the gags. All well-written and pleasingly delivered by…

No Reservations

(PG) 104min

23 Aug 2007

There are plenty of reasons to feel reserved about this maudlin romance between chefs, carelessly reheated from the rather airier 2001 Italian foodie-flick Mostly Martha. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Kate, a temperamental Nigella Lawson-type cook whose…

Open Mic@The Globe

23 Aug 2007

Introduced by amiable host, Bill Shakespeare, four of his best-loved characters step up to the mic. Hamlet is a wild-eyed Dane angry about adverts; Richard III has a mean streak a mile wide; Ophelia’s an unhinged cockney teenager; and Katherine the…

Patrick Monahan

23 Aug 2007

With Feel the Love, Monahan comes across as your archetypal loveable Geordie but you’d be hard pressed to feel anything but relief at the end of this. Devoid of any discernible subject matter, other than friendly audience banter, this is the equivalent…

Phil Nichol

23 Aug 2007

When a comic stands before his crowd after yet another uninspired anecdote and asks: ‘Don’t you think that was hilarious? I thought that was hilarious,’ you can only conclude that he knows he is in big trouble. With Hiro Worship, last year’s inaugural…

Psister Psycho

23 Aug 2007

Violating the first law of comedy musicals – that they be intolerable, unfunny bilge – this broad and imperfect light opera is a pleasant surprise. Though the plotting won’t give the fear to David Mamet, nor the music cause Lloyd Webber any sleepless…

Rhona Cameron

23 Aug 2007

‘I don’t feel you know enough about lesbian relationships,’ is somewhat unsurprisingly a misconception that this 41-year-old wishes to clear up, back at the Festival after a four-year break. But what broadens this show’s appeal from niche to mainstream…

Rich Hall

23 Aug 2007

It’s difficult even to imagine a Rich Hall performance being less than entertaining. His intelligent, grumpy, pragmatic worldview is broadcast by way of believable absurdities, anarchic situational vignettes and memorable wordplay. A pity he feels the…

Runaway Lovers

23 Aug 2007

The sketch show has really struggled this Fringe and this supposedly upcoming troupe do nothing to elevate the form. There’s a recurring gag about an arts interview show with people you’d imagine to be well-spoken but aren’t (Ridley Scott: he’s a…

Sammy J

23 Aug 2007

Sitting at his grand piano, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Sammy J looks like a cruise ship entertainer, but his clever, self-referential comedy is much more than kitsch parody. His upbeat songs are gleefully ridiculous and intervals of smart stand-up keep…

Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre

23 Aug 2007

There’s absolutely no doubting the effort put in here with this one-man sock puppet show, but there seems to have been more time spent on perfecting the timing between the two characters and less on any kind of script. Being billed as ‘worthy of Abbott…

Sean Hughes

23 Aug 2007

On the face of it, the stage Sean Hughes of 2007 doesn’t seem a whole lot different from the one who nabbed his first bit of fame back in 1990 as the youngest winner of the Perrier. With that boyish gaunt look still intact, he certainly doesn’t look any…

Shappi Khorsandi

23 Aug 2007

Shappi Khorsandi looks Greek, sounds posh, sleeps around and is an attention-seeking nightmare. Or so she would have us believe. The saucer-eyed, shiny-haired Iranian’s best material comes when she rips herself, very charmingly, to shreds. Taking all…

Shazia Mirza

23 Aug 2007

Most notorious for her line about the name on her pilot’s licence, Brummie comic Mirza here conjures up plenty more where that came from. The point she makes is as important as the quality of her material, lampooning the audience for choosing to see…

Simon Amstell

23 Aug 2007

Amstell is a good date. He makes you feel clever with his philosophical musings, draws you in with candid tales of heartache and social ineptitude and proves that his pulling power is still mighty away from the telly with tightly written, machine-gun…

Stephen Grant

23 Aug 2007

Stephen Grant is a comic whose toil cannot be over-stated. The evidence is there on the back of his shirt which, over the course of an hour, becomes entirely drenched in sweat. Not that he’s a particularly physical comedian, but in the confines of a…

Steve Williams

23 Aug 2007

There’s something quaintly old-fashioned about the Steve Williams shtick and his Binge Thinking is all the better for it. An array of well-worn targets (the British and their attitude to queues), are given fresh hurricanes of life with his amiable and…

Stuart Goldsmith & Jimmy McGhie

23 Aug 2007

When well brought up, sensitive McGhie’s girlfriend is pinched by a predatory Aussie diving instructor, he confesses he’d rather stay indoors doing a sudoku. Goldsmith’s romantic brainwave is stage-managing a situation where his girlfriend walks in on…

Take A Whiff of . . . Turpentine

23 Aug 2007

In an age of the supreme surrealist banter of the Mighty Boosh and twisted tales of The League of Gentlemen, the staged interplay between John Canfield and Richard Hutchison seems somewhat tired and awfully tame. The sketch-driven duo is at pains to…

The Bratchpiece Family

23 Aug 2007

It’s never a good sign when the compere insists that a comedy show is a ‘two-way thing’ and if we can show the acts some love then they will make us laugh. I’d always thought the latter came before the former, but neither is in much evidence as…

The Ugly Kid

23 Aug 2007

A quartet of comedians performs stream of consciousness sketches on subjects as typical as job interviews and doctor and nurses. Although individually talented, the group fail to meld and produce anything which the audience hasn’t seen before. The…

Tony Lee

23 Aug 2007

Despite the title’s claim to be ‘aggressive,’ Tony Lee turns out to be a kindly softy suggesting that anyone with mental health problems and those who are very drunk shouldn’t offer themselves up as hypnotist fodder; he’s the one that would get sued.

Tony Woods

23 Aug 2007

American Woods cultivates the awkward laugh. In fact, many of them are his own. Tapping the mic in a well-met gesture towards tough crowdism, he lazily relays his thoughts on adult themes of a predictably breasticular nature. Not shy of politics and…

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players

23 Aug 2007

Having visited the Fringe in 2004 and 2005, last year wasn’t quite the same without the Trachtenburgs around, sporting their thrift store chic. There seems to be no real barrier between the onstage and offstage personalities of Jason, Tina Pina and…

Umbrella Birds

23 Aug 2007

Set and staged in a portaloo, this series of vignettes veers from the clownishly comical to awkward and tender. Acutely observed and excellently acted by its four-strong female cast, it never takes the easy route to laughs and allows each scene to play…

X-Files Improv

23 Aug 2007

Dean Haglund played Langley, a nerdy conspiracy theorist, in the phenomenally successful X-Files. He uses the show’s format as a structure for some improv staples, and if you’ve ever seen Whose Line is it Anyway? you’ll know the drill. It’s not original…

Year of the Dog

(PG) 97min

23 Aug 2007

Talented comic screenwriter and actor Mike White (Chuck and Buck, The Good Girl, School of Rock) makes his directing debut with this low-key comedy about a loosely related group of neurotic nerds, geeks, dorks and stress monkeys living in bland suburban…