Comedy, Reviews

O Lucky Man!

8 May 2008

COMEDY/SATIRE (15) 169min (Warner Home Video) Lindsay Anderson’s 1973 masterpiece is long overdue a proper DVD release, particularly since it’s rarely shown on our television or cinema screens. In O Lucky Man!, Clockwork Orange star Malcolm McDowell…

Smart People

8 May 2008

COMEDY DRAMA (15) 94min Another week and another dysfunctional American family comedy. Scripted by novelist Mark Poirier and directed by newcomer Noam Murro, Smart People examines the improbable rejuvenation of widowed, middle-aged English professor…

Welcome to the Sticks

8 May 2008

COMEDY (12A) 106min Dany Boon’s box-office hit is the most successful French movie of all time. In just seven weeks on release, it broke 1966 comedy La Grande Vadrouille’s record for the highest ever attendance for a French film on home soil with 17…

William Sutcliffe - Whatever Makes You Happy

8 May 2008

FAMILY COMEDY (Bloomsbury) William Sutcliffe, Edinburgh-based spouse to Maggie O’Farrell and schoolmate of Ali G, is still best known for his 1997 coming of age debut Are You Experienced? Eleven years and three more books later, his fifth novel…

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

24 Apr 2008

ROMANCE/COMEDY (15) 110min The Judd Apatow movie production line shows no signs of abating as Forgetting Sarah Marshall follows the template of Knocked Up to deliver some laughs, banal moralising and side characters that outshine the lead. Writer and…

Made of Honour

24 Apr 2008

ROMANTIC COMEDY (12A) 101min Tom (former teen heartthrob Patrick Dempsey) is a wealthy New York City playboy. Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) is Tom’s best friend and the single constant female companion in the life of a serial shagger. But when Hannah is…

Three and Out

24 Apr 2008

COMEDY (15) 106min Heard the one about the suicidal 50-something Irishman Tommy (Colm Meaney) and the London tube driver and aspiring novelist Paul (Mackenzie Crook), who needs somebody to throw themselves under his train in order to collect a…

In Bruges

10 Apr 2008

CRIME/COMEDY (18) 107min A pair of mismatched professional hitmen are sent to the picturesque titular Belgian city to lie low after a job in London goes wrong. There, young philistine Ray (Colin Farrell) and older, cultured Ken (Brendan Gleeson) argue…

Also Released - Film

10 Apr 2008

Leatherheads (PG) 113min •• Directed by and starring George Clooney, Leatherheads is a wannabe Preston Sturges-style romantic comedy set against the backdrop of the burgeoning American football league in 1925. Dodge Connolly (Clooney) is a cocky but…

Botched

10 Apr 2008

COMEDY/CRIME/HORROR (15) 94min If characters explode like tomatoes in microwaves, you’re probably witnessing the continuing rise of British splat-core comedy horror that’s had as many hits (Shaun of the Dead, Severance) as misses (The Cottage), the…

Strange Wilderness

10 Apr 2008

COMEDY (15) 84min Dude, where’s my countryside? From Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison company, Strange Wilderness is another stoner-meets-nature comedy from director Fred Wolf, writer of the similarly low-rent male-bonding opus Without a Paddle. Peter…

Vegas Baby

10 Apr 2008

COMEDY (15) 86min (Momentum DVD rental/retail) One of the problems with Eric Bernt’s wannabe lad comedy is that there’s a twist in the tale that even the planners for Heathrow Terminal 5 could spot in advance. But it’s not the only problem. There…

27 Dresses

27 Mar 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (12A) 110min During an interview to promote Knocked Up, actress Katherine Heigl said of the Judd Apatow comedy that brought her worldwide fame (after her years lighting up Grey’s Anatomy): ‘It paints women as shrews, as humourless and…

First Sunday

27 Mar 2008

CRIME/COMEDY (12A) 97min When trousers fall down to reveal brightly-coloured underwear, any comedy is instantly revealed as low-brow, yet this vehicle for ex-rapper Ice Cube written, directed and produced by his old promo director friend David E…

You, the Living

27 Mar 2008

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 93min In an unnamed Nordic city a moustachioed tuba-player starts talking about savings and pensions, while making love to his wife who is wearing a military helmet. A dog is dragged along a pavement, attached to the walker of its…

Les Patterson Saves The World

13 Mar 2008

COMEDY (15) 85min (Arrow DVD retail) Strewth! When an unfortunate incident involving fart-burning at the UN sees Sir Les Patterson ignite Mustafa Toul, dictator of an oil rich middle eastern state, our hero is sent there to make amends. From there he…

Meet the Spartans

13 Mar 2008

COMEDY (12A) 83min Date Movie and Epic Movie were unforgivable atrocities against comedy, but writer/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer manage to deal themselves a slightly stronger hand with their latest effort Meet the Spartans, which sets…

The Boss Of It All

13 Mar 2008

COMEDY (15) 99min Taking a break from vituperative deconstructions of US history, the ever playful Danish director, writer and producer Lars Von Trier brings us a comedy shot in Automavision, a process whereby the director chooses a fixed camera…

The Cottage

13 Mar 2008

COMEDY/HORROR (18) 91min The art of the horror comedy is in juxtaposing terror with humour until both are intensified into hysteria. Good examples of the genre include John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2 and Wes…

Semi-Pro

28 Feb 2008

COMEDY (15) 91min Will Ferrell raises his game with this typically energetic and supremely daft ‘frat pack’ comedy that also boasts a surprising winning streak in its semi-serious celebration of the now defunct American Basketball Association. With…

Margot at the Wedding

28 Feb 2008

DRAMA/COMEDY (15) 92min Writer/director Noah Baumbach starts proceedings on his latest feature with a block capital title caption, forewarning the audience that his latest offering pays homage to the French New Wave, in particular the work of Francois…

The Game Plan

28 Feb 2008

FAMILY/COMEDY (U) 110min ‘Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?’ Although wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson doesn’t get to use his trademark catchphrase in Disney family-values comedy The Game Plan, his charismatic presence turns some…

The Bucket List

14 Feb 2008

COMEDY/ADVENTURE (12A) 96min After four decades as one of cinema’s most personable superstars, Jack Nicholson deserves the extended curtain call he gets in The Bucket List, even if it is sentimental, mawkish and manipulative. Ideally cast as filthy…

Be Kind Rewind

14 Feb 2008

COMEDY (12A) 100min Michel Gondry’s freewheeling satire on copyright law features a frustrated filmmaker Mike (Mos Def), who works in a VHS-only video store in an apartment block due for demolition. When his dad (Danny Glover) is out of town finding…

Penelope

(U) 89min

31 Jan 2008

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away from self-conscious satire, there lived a girl named Penelope (Christina Ricci). With her moneyed background, good sense of humour and French language skills, Penelope should be a bit of a catch. Sadly, Penelope…

Eagle Vs Shark

17 Jan 2008

COMEDY (15) 84min (Optimum DVD rental/retail) With its sweet soul and crumbly heart, you’d think that Eagle vs Shark would only be fit for shooting out of the sky or being drowned at birth. But in the hands of writer/director Taika Waititi and…

Slacker

17 Jan 2008

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 93min (Metrodome rental/retail) Originally released in 1991, Richard Linklater’s fine low-budget second feature may bring to mind one of contemporary cinema’s most over-used storytelling devices: the multiple character tale. But…

Sydney White

17 Jan 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (12A) 107min Ever since Amy Heckerling’s Clueless loosely adapted Jane Austen’s Emma to a modern High School setting it’s been the done thing to drop classic texts into a contemporary teenage setting. Joe Nussbaum’s Sydney White…

The Good Night

17 Jan 2008

COMEDY/DRAMA/ROMANCE (15) 93min Not above cashing-in on family connections, writer/director Jake Paltrow’s romantic comedy casts his older sister Gwyneth as the dowdy, disaffected partner of commercial jingle writer Gary (Martin Freeman). A kind…

PS I Love You

4 Jan 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (12A) 126min As the well-connected daughter of the current Taoiseach, author Cecilia Ahern could surely have pulled a few strings to ensure her novel PS I Love You avoided the abhorrent adaptation offered here by…

The Twelve Chairs

4 Jan 2008

COMEDY DRAMA (12A) 93min (Network DVD rental/retail) When Hipolito (Enriqye Saniesteban) hears that his dying mother-in-law has left a fortune in jewels stashed away in one of her dozen imported chairs, he determines to find the missing fortune.

What's Up, Tiger Lily?

4 Jan 2008

COMEDY (PG) 76min (Optimum retail) Despite insisting in the intro to his 1966 directorial debut (of sorts) that Gone With the Wind used the same strategy, this was the first film to remove the dialogue of one movie and dub a completely new stream of…

You Kill Me

29 Nov 2007

COMEDY/THRILLER (15) 92min John The Last Seduction Dahl’s latest film is a work of modest ambition that manages to hit just the right notes. The gleefully morbid script, by screenwriting team Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (The Life and…

Codename: The Cleaner

29 Nov 2007

COMEDY (12A) 84min So-called comedian Cedric the Entertainer should change his name to Cedric the Complete Non-Event on the evidence of this painfully un-entertaining spoof on the Jason Bourne movies. Having directed genuinely unfunny vehicles for…

Southland Tales

29 Nov 2007

SCI FI/COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 144min Los Angeles, 4 July 2008. Society is on the brink of social, economic and environmental collapse and an action star/boxer, a porn star and a police officer are making a last stand. Writer/director Richard Kelly’s…

DVD Roundup

15 Nov 2007

‘No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees/No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds!’ That’s how English poet and humourist Thomas Hood chose to describe the month of November. There is some of Hood’s cheeky sense of observation in John Waters: This…

Bill Bailey

1 Nov 2007

STAND-UP SECC, Glasgow, Wed 7–Fri 9 Nov It seems clear that Bill Bailey has never minded looking somewhat foolish in the pursuit of his chosen career path. Back in the early days when he was a mere West Country boy trying to earn a modest showbusiness…

Death at a Funeral

1 Nov 2007

DRAMA/COMEDY (15) 90min Having reportedly had his hands burned by the studios, who demanded re-shoots and re-cuts to what turned out to be a risible remake of The Stepford Wives, director Frank Oz (Mr Muppets to you and me) turns his not untalented…

Good Luck Chuck

1 Nov 2007

COMEDY/ROMANCE (15) 99min After demonstrating his lack of timing as editor on three Rush Hour films, Mark Helfrich makes an unsurprisingly awful directorial debut with this crude romantic comedy. US stand-up comic Dane Cook plays Charlie, a…

I Do

1 Nov 2007

ROMANTIC COMEDY (PG) 90min Meet Louis Costa (Alain Chabat from The Science of Sleep). He’s a 40-something Parisian perfumier, happily content with his bachelor existence. Yet, the women in his family – specifically domineering mother Genevieve…

Romuald et Juliette

1 Nov 2007

With broad hindsight it can often seem that too many French films made in the 80s centred around life swapping scenarios or sudden shifts in perspective and expectation – whether that happened to be Bertrand Blier with mischievous satires like Tenue de…

The Band's Visit

1 Nov 2007

COMEDY/DRAMA (12A) 87min The band in question is the Alexandria Ceremonial Police group, which has come to Israel to perform at the opening of an Arab cultural centre in Petach Tivka, north-east of Tel Aviv. Unfortunately for them there’s no one to…

The Brothers Solomon

1 Nov 2007

COMEDY (15) 92min Comedians Will Forte and Will Arnet dumb down their already dumb strain of Saturday Night Live humour to exhausting effect in this lowbrow comedy. When their father (Lee Majors) lapses into a coma, the understandably single Solomon…

Brendon Burns

18 Oct 2007

STAND-UP Maggie May’s, Glasgow, Fri 19 Oct When Brendon Burns was nine years old, he decided that a career in stand-up comedy was the road he wanted to travel down. While in Texas with his family, he was snuck into a comedy club through its kitchen…

Daddy Day Camp

18 Oct 2007

COMEDY/FAMILY (PG) 88min The indelible image of Cuba Gooding Jr enthusiastically ejaculating over Roger Moore’s face in 2003’s dismal comedy Boat Trip seemed to signal a new low in the one-time Academy Award-winner’s career trajectory. But somehow…

The History of the World Backwards

18 Oct 2007

COMEDY BBC4, Tue 30 Oct, 10pm Of all the survivors of The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Robert Newman has arguably been the one to escape with the largest amount of public goodwill behind him. Punt and Dennis have eased themselves into genteel…

Black Sheep

4 Oct 2007

It was only a matter of time before an enterprising New Zealand filmmaker made a horror movie about sheep. It’s surprising it’s taken this long for one to reach the big screen, and more surprising still, given the inherent low horror factor of lamb…

Ratatouille

4 Oct 2007

(U) 110min COMEDY/ANIMATION Writer/director Brad Bird’s animated version of The Iron Giant made him the obvious candidate to follow on from John Lasseter’s innovative groundwork at Pixar, where he scored an immediate hit with The Incredibles. So even…

Labyrinth of Passion

4 Oct 2007

(18) 94min (Tartan/DVD Retail) SCREWBALL MELODRAMA It was with this, Pedro Almodovar’s second film, made in 1982, that the brand of melodrama which has become known as ‘Almodorama’ – essentially a combination of melodrama and screwball comedy…

The Ex

4 Oct 2007

(15) 90min (Icon/Rental) COMEDY Meet the Parents meets There’s Something About Mary with a bit of Garden State thrown in for good measure just about sums up the hardly original but often amusing latest Zach Braff vehicle. Playing a husband who’s…

As You Like It

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/ADAPTATION (12A) 126min His forthcoming remake of Anthony Shaffer/Joseph L Mankewicz’s Sleuth (this time adapted by Harold Pinter) may put his career back on track, but Kenneth Branagh’s once golden touch with the Bard turns leaden with As You…

Clubland

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 107min Brenda Blethyn is on Little Voice form in this touching, bittersweet Australian comedy. She plays Jean, an ageing stand-up comedienne whose best days are behind her. She’s also a control freak who refuses to accept that her…

Hatchet

20 Sep 2007

HORROR/COMEDY (18) 85min Although the tagline – ‘it’s not a remake, it’s not a sequel and it’s not based on a Japanese one’ – suggests Hatchet is an original horror movie, it’s far from that. It is, as a second tagline more accurately describes this…

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY (12A) 110min Adam Sandler’s determination to earth his angry-funnyman persona within real-life tragedy has already resulted in the flop of maudlin post-9/11 drama Reign On Me. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry offers a rather sunnier view of…

Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/DRAMA (12A) 102min The National Lottery logo often elicits audience groans at the start of a film; twee comedy-dramas like Mrs Ratcliffe’s Revolution are the reason why. Set in 1969, Billie Eltringham’s film begins when British couple Dorothy…

One Last Dance

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/CRIME/ROMANCE (18) 110min (Tartan DVD retail/rental) Straight-to-DVD premieres no longer herald generally third-rate titles, as this off-beat Asian crime film proves. Written and directed by Brazilian filmmaker Max Makowski, and financed and…

Rocket Science

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 101min Having charmed cinema-goers with his enthralling Oscar-nominated documentary Spellbound, director Jeffrey Blitz works a different kind of magic with this beguiling fiction film debut. Where his first film followed a bunch of…

12.08 East of Bucharest

6 Sep 2007

On 22 December 1989, the Romanian Revolution that was to see the end of Communist rule and the execution of long-standing Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu had spread to most major cities. It was a day of rebellion, demonstration and change that few…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…

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…

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…