Comedy and Profile

Interview: Isy Suttie on tea, Technotronic and Ice, Ice, Baby

Stand up comedian, actress, writer and musician

6 Jan 2012

First record you ever bought. ‘This Beat is Technotronic’ by Technotronic. Last extravagant purchase you made My Martin three-quarter-size guitar. First film you saw that really moved you Manhattan. Last lie you told I told the postman…

5 things you might not know about Nick Helm

The former 'dinner lady' and 2011 Best Joke of the Fringe winner doesn't get on with Alice Cooper

5 Jan 2012

1 Among Nick Helm’s pre-showbiz jobs have been as a ‘dinner lady’ at a secondary school for boys, counting traffic and working in the café of a garden centre. 2 In 2001, he formed a theatre company called Bad Ash Productions whose oeuvre includes I…

Interview - Rob Brydon

The comic actor answers our questions ahead of the release of his autobiography, Small Man in a Book

17 Oct 2011

First record you ever bought Apart from Rupert Bear, Propaganda by Sparks. Last extravagant purchase you made A cashmere scarf. First film you saw that really moved you Barney’s Version. Last lie you told I never lie. First movie you…

Five fun facts about Ed Byrne

Some little known facts about the Irish comic's altercations with popes, Perriers and Piers Morgan

17 Oct 2011

Born in the Dublin suburb of Swords, Byrne first got involved in stand-up comedy as a horticulture student at Strathclyde University. As part of the student union, Byrne hosted pub quizzes and karaoke nights which provided him with a taste for showing…

5 Things you might not know about Alan Carr

19 Sep 2011

1 Carr’s distinctive toothy look was due to a childhood accident when he fell and banged his chin on the caravan-towing bar on a family holiday. 2 Before he got proper famous, Carr had a litany of awful-sounding temp jobs: putting shampoo in boxes…

Profile - Sebastian Koch

German star of coming-of-age Brit comedy Albatross

13 Sep 2011

Name Sebastian Koch Born Karlsruhe, Germany, May 31 1962 Background Koch has worked solidly in European films and TV for over 25 years, but it was his terrific performance in The Lives of Others (2006) that made him recognisable to cinema…

Interview - Joe Bone from Bane

The noir shows that have stalked the Edinburgh Fringe for three years

4 Aug 2011

Joe Bone is a busy man. A few years back, he created the hard-boiled character Bruce Bane in the wake of a spate of old detective movies he'd been watching. Fast forward to 2011, and Bane has taken on a life of his own, spawning three stage shows, a…

Danny Bhoy - Five things you might not know

Scottish-born comedian returns home from Australia for Glasgow show

28 Jun 2011

1: The b(h)oy from Moffat is a fully-fledged Aussie now, though he had a nervous wait to find out if the immigration panel would give his application for permanent residency the thumbs-up after they requested tickets to see his show in Canberra. Despite…

Profile: Philip Seymour Hoffman, director and star of Jack Goes Boating

The much-respected actor screens his directorial debut at the EIFF

27 May 2011

Born Fairport, New York, 23 July 1967. Background Known as the ‘character actor’s character actor’, Hoffman has been a jobbing actor since the early 1990s. After playing bit parts in television shows, shorts and features, Hoffman got his breakthrough…

Five interesting things about... Dylan Moran

Irish comedian shares hometown with Tommy Tiernan and Pierce Brosnan

23 May 2011

1 Irishman Moran has been living in Edinburgh for some years now, but is originally from Navan, a small, five-lettered palindromic town, like Kivik in Sweden or Catac in Peru. Tiny it may be (according to the 2006 census, 3710 people resided there) but…