Comedy and Issue 611

The Wackness

21 Aug 2008

COMEDY/DRAMA Jonathan Levine’s follow-up to the surprisingly good horror film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is another voyage into nostalgic romanticism and teenage growing pains. This time Levine is pining for his lost youth with a film set in 1994…

Scott Capurro

A mix of the inspired and the obnoxious

21 Aug 2008

It’s been said that the older people get, the less worried they are about causing offence. Scott Capurro, veteran of some 15 Fringe summers, has clearly decided to go for broke this year, trampling all over every sacred cow and totem of political…

Kristen Schaal & Kurt Braunohler

Schaal and pal delve into surreal corners

21 Aug 2008

A warning is gently dispatched: Double Down Hearts will break our minds. Co-written in reverse chronological order by Kristen Schaal, of Flight of the Conchords fame, and Kurt Braunohler, her ‘gift’ of a comedy partner, the play pastiches the melodrama…

Michael McIntyre

The accent is on over-familiarity

21 Aug 2008

Last year, Michael McIntyre apparently harangued two judges on the if.comedy panel for doing this nation the great disservice of not handing him the award on a plate. Still, he could at least reassure himself of his genius with all those flattering star…

College Road Trip

21 Aug 2008

Aiming for the generational conflict of Freaky Friday, director Roger Kumble’s family-comedy-drama focuses on trust issues between high-flying teen Melanie (Raven-Symoné) and her over-protective father, police chief James Porter (Martin Lawrence). When…

Janey Godley

Family tale from straight-talking Glaswegian

21 Aug 2008

The title of this show, Domestic Godley, doesn’t refer to the cooking, cleaning, dinner parties ‘domestic goddess’ stereotype. Janey Godley’s candid stand-up is specific to her east end of Glasgow upbringing and subsequently eventful life. With a…

Nick Doody

21 Aug 2008

As if a three-week run at the Fringe wasn’t enough to leave him desperate for a well-earned break, Nick Doody brings highlights from his daffy, gently satirical Edinburgh show Tour of Doody to the west coast as part of Susan Morrison’s Pick of the…

Festival Books - Mark Watson

Eco-friendly, my dear Watson

21 Aug 2008

According to Mark Watson, saving the planet would, at the very least, ‘look pretty smart on all our CVs’. With an already sterling comedy résumé, Watson takes on environmentalism in his latest book, Crap at the Environment, which through the author’s…

Carol Leifer

A Fringe debut to forget

21 Aug 2008

Of course, it’s daft to generalise, but when heavily-anticipated American stars have come across to the Fringe they’ve either blown us away or totally bombed. In the happy former camp are Demetri Martin, Kristen Schaal and Doug Stanhope. In the…

Jason Cook

Finding comfort and joy in the darkest of places

21 Aug 2008

It’s his birthday today, so you’d expect Jason Cook to be in party mode. His sister has even showed up for Joy in this tiny and packed Stand back-room. But while we pile out onto the street having hugged strangers and armed with paraphernalia that would…

Aeneas Faversham Forever

Dreadfuls give us a daring, playful and epic tale

21 Aug 2008

A trio of Victorian gentlemen humourists, the Penny Dreadfuls bring you the visually resplendent, aurally pleasurable Aeneas Faversham Forever, one of this year’s most scrumptious and comically edifying Fringe treats. Something shadily undefined yet…

Get Smart

21 Aug 2008

After the financial/emotional excremental woes of Evan Almighty and Dan in Real Life, comic Steve Carell shores up his career with a safe property: Peter Segal’s tent-pole blockbuster revamp of 1960s spy spoof Get Smart. Maxwell Smart (Carell) is an…

Step Brothers

21 Aug 2008

COMEDY ‘Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream’ is the George W Bush quotation which opens new Will Ferrell comedy Step Brothers. Such crude expression sets the tone for a sporadically funny but generally gross comedy in…

Ahir Shah & Alex Maple

Raw talents in unfettered mayhem

21 Aug 2008

A few years back, a show entitled It’s a Shambles won the Perrier Best Newcomer award. If that moniker hadn’t already been snapped up, it could so easily have applied to this ramshackle affair. And yet, rather than making this an hour of difficult…

The Meeting

Hanging loose with sketches and site-specific silliness

21 Aug 2008

Two disgruntled men get up and walk out of The Meeting just minutes before a mysterious mobile phone twitters away. The beauty of this site-specific gem is that it’s not immediately certain whether these are an unfortunate series of two events or subtle…

5 Questions - John Wheeler

21 Aug 2008

What five words best describe your stand-up show? Only the truth is funny. Which comics should be more famous than they are now? Just Jamie Kilstein. Here is a man that is not only funny but also likes ale. Can you tell me one strange thing…

Fool Koller

Wet feral fun from Dutch pratfaller

21 Aug 2008

The ambit of what has not yet been done shrinks ever smaller. Pity the poor alternative comedians, clutching at auxiliary originalities as the pool of unprecedented material ebbs to nothing: slicker, quicker jokes, more postmodernism, cynicism…

Jason Byrne

Totally insane, bloody funny

21 Aug 2008

Several things will probably happen at a Jason Byrne gig. A teenage boy in the crowd will squirm while Byrne guesses what he gets up to behind closed bedroom doors. Audience members get assigned surreal characters, based around something Byrne’s caught…

New Art Club

Some tame stuff in their extra ordinary world

21 Aug 2008

When you are dubbed the ‘Morecambe and Wise of dance’ that has to be a mixed blessing. It’s certainly going to get you some press attention and interest from audiences who wouldn’t normally consider seeing any kind of dance, but the downside is obvious…

And On Your Left… Ruth Bratt

Memorably madcap bunch of characters

21 Aug 2008

It’s been a mixed bag of a Fringe for female character comics, but Ruth Bratt’s collection of mad hatters certainly puts her in the top bracket. Set up as a road trip around the sites of Edinburgh, the show introduces a tour guide who is a mixture of…

Bad Dog Variety

Oddball creations lacking in bite

21 Aug 2008

A show presented in the form of the worst cabaret show you could have the misfortunate to see has plenty of potential, but something just doesn’t quite gel with Bad Dog Variety. Our two German hosts Christian and Barnard (all the way from Antwerp? The…

Paul Kerensa

Failing the great playlist challenge

21 Aug 2008

Although lots of love and forward planning have clearly gone into Paul Kerensa’s show, his fuddy duddy, granny-friendly material taints the brighter, more likeable stuff. Taking his cue from Dave Gorman, he designed a show around a comedy challenge by…

Umbrage Swain

New Romantic heroes stand and deliver

21 Aug 2008

The New Romantic Gentleman Thief (looking uncannily like Eddie Izzard dressed as Adam Ant), his Cure-loving sidekick and Tina Fray (an excellently faux innocent Millie Reeves) swash and buckle in battle with evil baddie The Darkness (no, not Justin…

Arthur Smith’s Arturart

Artistic venture with knob gags

21 Aug 2008

Winner of last year’s Spirit of the Fringe if.comeddie award, Arthur Smith’s Arturart returns with another explosion of what its creator describes humbly as a ‘vanity project’. Situated at 15 Queen Street, the fiftysomething stand-up veteran’s…

Pagagnini

Giving clowning a modern twist

21 Aug 2008

After five minutes of classical music in a strictly straight-faced, show-off virtuoso style, from a string quartet in coat-tails and white bow-ties, the first signs of slapstick start to appear. It’s from the Spanish mime and physical theatre troupe…

Badly Ranted Thoughts Via the Magic of Song

A cult alternative to stand-up-by-numbers

21 Aug 2008

Doktor Cocacolamcdonalds is a crowd divider of a man. One half remains stony-faced, mentally working out what else they could have spent that tenner on, and the other ends up laughing slightly hysterically at his brand of freak or unique comedy. Wearing…

Nude

Non-gratuitous meanderings for art’s sake

21 Aug 2008

Don’t worry, there is no gratuitous nudity in Nude, just two actors flexing and posing their naked bodies in close proximity to the front row. But it’s all done in the name of art, and the context of a life drawing class, in which the reluctant audience…

Dan March

Stuffy MySpace dramedy

21 Aug 2008

Social networking may rear its fashionable head in this one-man comic play from Dan March, but it’s the more timeless topic of fatherhood that’s really up for appraisal. It is, ostensibly, a true story. March, a struggling actor, really did have a…

Hils Barker

Fanciful but flaccid exhibitionism

21 Aug 2008

Sinister social network sites are under precision attack in Hils Barker’s character exposé Exhibitionist! which links four lonely souls to ‘Profile Me’, an invention more Orwellian than Facebook. Barker attempts to draw parallels between billionaire…

Jarlath Regan

A charming but semi-comatose hour

21 Aug 2008

When you Google ‘relax the cax’, you will be asked, ‘Did you mean “relax the car”?’ Well, of course not, that’s just silly. But perhaps more daft is that gentle Irish comic Jarlath Regan failed to find it within himself to explain the title of his show…

Shazia Mirza

A stilted set about the big issues

21 Aug 2008

A lot of Shazia Mirza’s material deals with her social awkwardness. Juggling the roles of devout daughter of fundamentalist Muslims and trailblazing female Muslim stand-up, she’s experienced her fair share of cultural dilemmas. But beyond the hype over…

The Jonny and Joe Show

Hanging loose with sketches and site-specific sillinessHanging loose with sketches and site-specific

21 Aug 2008

It’s one thing to concoct a brilliant idea (a meeting headed up by executives who are afraid of ghosts, unsure what petty cash is and hellbent on finding a missing mug) another is to pull it off. The trio collectively known as the House of Windsor are…

Ivan Brackenbury

Ill-advised gags in the Disease Hour

21 Aug 2008

Fresh from a triumphant Fringe 07 which included an if.comeddie nomination and a string of rave reviews, Chesterfield and North Derbyshire’s foot-in-mouth specialist hospital DJ is back. And in a seasonal twist, he’s turning August into Christmas-time…

Andrew O’Neill

A history lesson with bizarre wordplay

21 Aug 2008

With his whimsical garb and gothic make-up, Andrew O’Neill resembles an Edwardian punk, a juxtaposition that extends to a strange little set rife with absurdity. Presented as a mock history lesson about British industry replete with the now-ubiquitous…

Two Episodes of MASH

Potentially great sketches simmer to nothing

21 Aug 2008

Their publicity photo brings to mind the sellotaped surrealist madness of early noughties Noble and Silver while their onstage relationship might, with a wildly imaginative leap mind, make you think of Terry and June had they been members of Monty…

WitTank

Inventive sketches from young team

21 Aug 2008

On first glance, it’s a bit of a rubbish name. And on second inspection, even when you see that WitTank actually serves a dual purpose (being a pun on a particular sex move and the suggestion of a container full of humour), it’s still mildly annoying.

Kiosk of Champions

Knockabout fun from undynamic duo

21 Aug 2008

Describing themselves at the upshot as the ‘conquerors of comedy’ and ‘buccaneers of wit’, Richard Sandling (he of VHS: Death to DVD Fringe fame) and Stuart Goldsmith (he’s toured with Mark Watson, you know) have managed to cobble together the most…

Edinburgh-on-Sea

Causing a splash on the Fringe

21 Aug 2008

There are performances in campervans and squash courts on the Fringe this year, but a swimming pool is one of the quirkiest venues. Liz Bentley commandeers the pool for a show that includes her own barmy lo-fi poetry and observations on life plus…

The Wrong Door

21 Aug 2008

COMEDY There’s only one thing worse than a really bad sketch show. And that’s a really bad sketch show that has had absolutely loads of money thrown at it. So much dosh has been set aside for the special effects in The Wrong Door that no one seems to…

The Producers

21 Aug 2008

COMEDY Mel Brooks’ classic and surely – with full respect to High Anxiety and Blazing Saddles – his greatest film still stands up brilliantly forty years on. For those unfamiliar with its plot, we meet a rapacious Broadway producer (Zero Mostel) and…

Beautiful People (Don't Travel Economy)

21 Aug 2008

Any airline comedy with a bitchy hostess at its helm is always going to draw parallels with Pam Ann. The larger than life (thanks to a fat suit) Alexis Van Airbust certainly isn't as slick and the gags are somewhat familiar but nevertheless Robert…

Junk Band Story: Uh?!

21 Aug 2008

'Uh?!' is right. Billed as music, comedy and martial arts, in reality it's a bewildering musical comedy played on instruments assembled from junk (think Stomp with a glue gun). The show is cobbled together from comedic skits, tantalisingly brief…

Eleanor Tiernan & John F O'Donnell

21 Aug 2008

The premise here - that bumbling, shaking Tiernan can't cope without her American sidekick - unfortunately turns out to be too close to the truth. When O'Donnell is a no-show, Tiernan's jokes about having crap material aren't followed with any real…

John Hegley

21 Aug 2008

Hegley strides the stage like a sexy English teacher berating an audience of children and adults alike and urging us to join in at key points. Hegley doesn't disappoint with a show (loosely) working through the alphabet and employing animal themes as…

Goodbye Goodbye

21 Aug 2008

Strappingly acted, cleverly written and innovatively staged, this intriguing narrative sketch show is let down by its indecision. At times it's content with its many funny lines and characters, at others it seems to lust vainly after an earnest…

Philip Escoffey

21 Aug 2008

It's almost impossible to criticise this show from 'mind-reader' extraordinaire Escoffey unless you simply refuse to buy into this entertainment sub-genre and are blind to the sights he lays before your eyes. Perhaps the only downside is that the…

Vladimir McTavish

21 Aug 2008

In addition to generating plenty of laughs, the oddly monikered Glasgow-born comedian's new list-based show makes for a very serviceable and satirical potted history of Scotland. By nature of being a top 50 (Greatest Scots Ever!), McTavish's list is far…

Jimmy Carr

21 Aug 2008

Love him or hate him – and, let’s face it, no one really finds themselves in that safe middle ground here – there’s no doubting Jimmy Carr’s ability to write and deliver a cutting set-up and punchline. Whether Joke Technician will include some typically…

7 Sins

21 Aug 2008

Limelight-loving, fabulous and about as butch as Dorothy's dog Toto, San Francisco comedian James Judd's fate was inevitable from the day his mum paid him to act out soaps she'd missed. In a breathless hour, with quick Martini stops, he acts out…

Eric's Tales of the Sea

21 Aug 2008

Eric shares his life working on a submarine, from emergency escape training, through embarrassing onanistic initiation to a strong friendship formed with the submarine prankster. Though Eric's storytelling style could do with a little tightening up…

Generation Divide

21 Aug 2008

The tensions of the generation gap - lingo, music, gadgets - get a going over in this sporadically funny double-act show. Richard Rycroft is 48 and looks like a Tory minister; Cal Saville is half his age but equally posh, as he's first to admit. They're…

Joke-e-oke

21 Aug 2008

This strangely simple but effective pub game lets punters try out their favourite comedian's routine, with help from an autocue. Just like karaoke, a mix of real talent and boozy have-a-go heroes come out the woodwork to copy Richard Pryor, Dylan Moran…

Jamie Kilstein

21 Aug 2008

Hey, you know what would be a novel idea for a comedy show? Taking pot-shots at the God-fearing American right from a left-wing perspective! Kilstein evidently thinks his scattergun approach to Republicans and organised religion is edgy, and maybe it is…

Raymond Mearns

21 Aug 2008

Mearns is a formidable character, an apoplectic hurricane of bluster as he details his exploits on the cruise ship comedy circuit, family life and other unrelated topics. The gathering rage whips up momentum but the punchlines often fail to land. He's…

About Benson & Hill

21 Aug 2008

This likeable double act play tag, so you get Geordie comic Luke Benson's audience-based improvisations and clever wordplay followed by his Leicestershire counterpart Martin Hill's observations about everyday life laced with surreal…

Dan Atkinson

21 Aug 2008

Not sure whether Atkinson woke up in a bad mood that afternoon or whether he'd simply left his mojo elsewhere, but this hour of moaning about having been left behind by his friends and whingeing about having moved to London kicks off promisingly but all…

Carl Donnelly & John Robins

21 Aug 2008

Two chaps with bright futures amble along amiably with their separate stand-up sections, linked by an amusing satisfied drinking sound, fashioning out little urban observations and memories of childhood. Clearly, this has no bearing on the star rating…

James Dowdeswell

21 Aug 2008

A perfectly likeable chap with a decent story to tell about his experience of being at a school which had a near-Columbine incident and its strange aftermath, this is an hour about how it's tough being nice. Perhaps it is simply easier to find and write…

Learn to Play the Ukulele in Under an Hour

21 Aug 2008

'The ukulele is the cure for depression', claim Sam and Donal, your specialist historians and ukulele instructors for the day. With a Dave Gorman-style slideshow of whimsical adventure, it's the audience members that create the soundtrack with provided…

Sally-Anne Hayward

21 Aug 2008

You want to like Hayward as she is a capable performer and pleasingly game when handling a tiny crowd, but her flimsy tale about village life borders on anorexic. Her all-too frequent poser: 'And you know what happened next?' sounds like an exhausted…

Girl and Dean

21 Aug 2008

Tragically, the hand-knitted props from last year haven't returned, and an annoying puppet and some over-long sketches have snuck in instead. The quirky duo still deliver occasional gems like their posh thesp stereotypes and weird cake-themed…

Limmy's Show

21 Aug 2008

Limmy presents a trademark show of stand-up and internet tinkering with video messages from some oddball acquaintances, the dissection of an ad for fish fingers and some gay porn featuring Coronation Street's Betty. There are some great ideas here and…

Madame with an 'E'

21 Aug 2008

Madame is a scrawny, dirty puppet who bears an uncanny likeness to Joan Rivers. As unappealing as she may sound, the ageing showgirl's rampant filth and alcoholism has a rather endearing quality. Her puppeteer whisks her around a decaying Hollywood and…

Robert Hood

21 Aug 2008

It’s another quality night of techno at Monox as the team are joined by special guest Robert Hood, one of the founding members of the legendary Underground Resistance collective alongside Mad Mike Banks and Jeff Mills, who added industrial and acid to…

Shitty Deal Puppet Theatre Company

21 Aug 2008

This low-tech, frantic and ingenious wee show uses Action Man, plastic dinosaurs and teenage-goth panda bear puppets to act out scenes from art history and blockbuster films. Luckily it moves too fast to dwell on the less funny jokes, but cameos from a…

Ali Cook

A pleasing mix of cheesy and sinister

21 Aug 2008

He chews razor blades, crushes doves and gets journalists up on stage to help him perform tricks: Ali Cook simply has no fear. With a pleasing mix of cheesy/sinister, there is happily little that is A Touch of Vegas as he demolishes mobile phones…

The Worst Zoo in Britain

21 Aug 2008

This suffers the quandary of being an interesting tale, told by an uninteresting storyteller. Welsh stand-up, Tudur Owen, describes in painfully slow detail how his family came to be the first and last zoo keepers on the island of Anglesey. Owen has…

James Sherwood

21 Aug 2008

Sherwood could be the love child of Victoria Wood and Richard Whiteley, a not so wild fusion of bland complacent chuckles set to music accompanied by smug smatterings. It's clever in places, but it's really all over before you've noticed. It'll have you…

Jollie

21 Aug 2008

Two Durham Revue fellas John and Ollie whose names slot together so well they form another word entirely, also form a tightly written and intelligently thought out double act. The inevitable friction between the pair - sharing a girlfriend and John's…

Men with Bananas

21 Aug 2008

Hairy men Dave (the Chameleon) and Mark (the Bear) have bananas. The bananas are not really necessary, but they're squidgy and look like penises, which is more than enough to qualify them for this endearingly stupid show. The whole thing is carried off…

The Balloon Debate

21 Aug 2008

Less of a debate and more of a meander as friends Gary and Dan are thrown together on a hot air balloon trip with a somewhat haphazard pilot when Gary's girlfriend fails to turn up. Cue much fretting about his relationship from Gary, an exasperated…

Summat an' Nowt

21 Aug 2008

Olivia Neville has got a rich cache of characters and uses her talents well, but one can't help but feel that she's wasted an opportunity here to really lampoon Lancashire. The title of the show suggests something other than the amusing sketches she…

Pluck

21 Aug 2008

A brilliant mix of high comedy, astonishing musicianship and a touch of romance, Pluck give us a re-imagined telling of the musicians who stayed behind on the Titanic in spite of a strange intruder, string rivalry, and well, the obvious sinking of the…

Slap, Tickle and Squeak

21 Aug 2008

If this show carries any profitable message for its audience, it's that all improvised comedy performances should carry a warning. Using every drama teacher's game in the book, the trio present sketches and freaks in a poor adaptation of Edwardian…

Chris Cox

21 Aug 2008

An amiable young man, Cox makes behavioural predictions about his audience by reading their body language, using neuro-linguistic programming and sometimes just peeking when his eyes are supposed to be closed. Frequent mistakes and bad guesses make this…

Gamarjobat

21 Aug 2008

The playful Japanese pair deftly animate all the trappings of a silent Western, complete with a revenge killing and a big-hearted prostitute. A clever use of shiny happy plastic props and stylishly twee sound effects successfully endow the sex and guns…

Jason John Whitehead

21 Aug 2008

The laid-back Whitehead, defined by his rock apparel and sleepy eyes claims to have worked hard over this year's show: 'it's got a theme; it's about being a comedian.' This is typical of the Canadian's easy-going style and enjoyable performance, but…

Sound & Fury

21 Aug 2008

Forcing your audience to participate from the off, to the extent of having them read the first lines of your play, is pretty risky. Fortunately, LA-based Sound & Fury muster this feat with shambolic charm. Employing iambic pentameter, flouncey costumes…

Felix Dexter

21 Aug 2008

Affable as Dexter seems, his is another show of thwarted ambition, over-reliance on funny voices and an hour show that clocks in at almost 50 minutes, a somewhat irritating trend that has been all-too prevalent this year. There's nothing lightweight…

FxP2 in Trouble!

21 Aug 2008

The thing with last-gasp chances are that you have got to take them. And thankfully this set of young sketch artists pulls out a ludicrously playful finale (a boy band mime) that saves the day. It's when they are left to their own writing devices that…

Achtung Pal

21 Aug 2008

Twelve hopeful students chew, gag and gurn their way through a barrage of German and 'Schottish' accents in this dreary 1943-Nazi-occupied-Dundee-set comedy. Sparky performances from the stinky Scottish gypsy prostitute and an officer's secretary are…

Literally

21 Aug 2008

Taking an admirably no-prisoners stance against the abuse and misuse of the word 'literally', Paul Parry delivers his anecdotes and research tongue-in-cheek (though not literally). His smart, dry humour and Viz-style subversive pedantry combine with his…

Barbershopera

Slapstick moments and lyrical buffoonery appear effortless

21 Aug 2008

There a couple of pre-requisites for attending Barbershopera: an appreciation of musical comedy and a passion for a cappella are essential. A penchant for false facial hair is helpful. That said, Toni & The Guys put on an almost seamlessly tight show…

Funny. Twice.

21 Aug 2008

An inoffensive show in a boiling shoebox of a venue, Damion Larkin verbally fondles loneliness and boobies, Jimmy McGhie waxes Londonishly about computer games and holidays. Most refreshing when dissecting their own delivery, Larkin's faux misery and…

…And Other Stories

21 Aug 2008

Yet another in a long Fringe line of below-average youth sketch shows by a group (this time the Durham Revue) that will no doubt have some talented writers and actors within its circle but whose abilities are swamped in a sea of over-enthusiastic…

Why We Ate Cliff Richard

21 Aug 2008

A two-hander disaster story, this is a frantic set which at best resembles the shouty, anarchic energy of The Young Ones, but ultimately fails because of poor writing and uninventive plotting. Hank Marvin's flashy riffs hold things together and a…

Craig Campbell

21 Aug 2008

A one-man play that deserves an audience of less, there is probably a clever, poignant story here. It's just very well-hidden behind the screaming, swearing and unimaginative sexual euphemisms - and who can ever tire of simulated masturbation or crazed…

Andrew Stanley

21 Aug 2008

Being whimsically funny seems to be part of the Irish birth right and Stanley is another example of an act who is adept at managing a crowd and building up a sweat as his shaggy hair matches the tales he unfurls. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 668 1633…

Janey Godley wins Funny Women Fringe Award

21 Aug 2008

Scottish comedy talent has been recognised by the Nivea Funny Women Fringe Award which went to Glasgow stand-up Janey Godley. The comic won the £1000 award with her show Domestic Godley, in which she shares home truths about family, friends and her…