Comedy and Reviews

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…

Lucy Porter

A set down to its bare bones

14 Aug 2008

While it may have been slightly dispiriting for Lucy Porter to hop out on stage to a less than packed auditorium, there's little in her jovial demeanour to suggest crushed hopes. To spend an hour in Porter's company is akin to having a litre of Jelly…

Kung Fu Panda

3 Jul 2008

COMEDY/ANIMATION (PG) 91min In the words of Carl Douglas’ 1974 disco hit: ‘Everybody is kung fu fighting.’ Everybody, that is, apart from overweight panda Po (voiced by Jack Black). He dreams about joining his heroes, the Fierce Five, in butt-kicking…

A Fantastic Fear of Everything

Crispian Mills' directorial debut starts well but quickly loses pace

11 May 2012

A film by the former lead singer of Kula Shaker might not sound an appetising prospect. But before dismissing A Fantastic Fear of Everything, we should remember that Crispian Mills’ film pedigree is pretty spot-on. He is, after all, the son of Hayley…

Births, Deaths and Marriages

New radio sitcom from Alan Partridge regular David Schneider

22 May 2012

The old triumvirate of hatch, match and dispatch will surely prove fertile for the big comedic brain of David Schneider as he launches his new radio sitcom. Set in a Local Register Office, chief registrar Malcolm Fox (not Ian Rankin’s post-Rebus…

Sara Pascoe

Disappointing debut from Freud-studying comic

24 Aug 2010

Given that she’s performing her debut solo Fringe hour, the fact that Sara Pascoe is directing two other shows by more experienced comics might have gone a little to her head. Then again, this show is entitled Sara Pascoe vs Her Ego, and judging by the…

The Boat That Rocked

2 Apr 2009

COMEDY/DRAMA Richard Curtis’ return to the big screen after six years back working in television is not as rockin’ as it is rolling, loose, baggy and freewheeling. It feels like a very long musical montage with little structure or direction. Some…

My Best Friend’s Girl

13 Nov 2008

(15) 99min From Howard Deutch, the auteur behind the seminal teen movie Pretty in Pink starring Molly Ringwald, My Best Friend’s Girl is a 1980s throwback rom-com, updated with scatological language. Dane Cook, so disagreeable in last year’s Good…

Dark Shadows

A fun, if forgettable vampire movie, starring Johnny Depp, Eva Green and Michelle Pfeiffer

10 May 2012

Like a kid who turns up late to a Halloween party, Tim Burton arrives with his latest, vampire movie Dark Shadows. After Twilight, 30 Days of Night and Let The Right One In, not to mention TV’s True Blood…aren’t fangs, dusty coffins and dissolving in…

Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson's latest echoes his earlier triumphs, but breaks no new ground

17 May 2012

Wes Anderson’s seventh film feels like a Greatest Hits package. Which if you’re a Wes fan will make you very happy. Set on a New England island in the summer of 1965, the opening sequence of Moonrise Kingdom, with its incessant camera-pans around the…

Project X

Major league mayhem with a dark, twisted edge

1 Mar 2012

(18) 88mins Animal House meets The Blair Witch Project, only this time the horror is very real in a movie that will undoubtedly give all parents nightmares. No, this is not a film about paranormal activity, but a high school party that gets…

Passenger Side is a witty road movie about sibling rivalries

Matt Bissonnette's comedy stars Joel Bissonnette and Adam Scott

28 Mar 2011

(12A) 85min Before the road movie was carjacked by the American gross-out comedy, Easy Rider and its offspring helped establish a genre of American outsider cinema, with its portraits of the big country beyond the confines of the Hollywood system.

Ashley Hames

The queasy confessions of a sex reporter

10 Aug 2009

At the top of the show, journalist and TV presenter Ashley Hames (possibly best known as the News Bunny on Live TV!) warns that he’s not a stand-up comedian; certainly his command of the script and PowerPoint presentation is endearingly shambling in…

What To Expect When You’re Expecting

A witless and bland work based on the pregnancy self-help book

23 May 2012

‘You don’t know what love is until you’ve wiped someone’s ass,’ offers one of the many baby-boomers in Kirk (Waking Ned, Everybody’s Fine) Jones’ multi-stranded adaptation of the bestselling self-help book about the dos and don’ts of pregnancy.

21 Jump Street

Deceptively smart big screen revival of the once popular TV show, with Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill

12 Mar 2012

(15)109min Taken at face value, 21 Jump Street is another mis-matched buddy cop outing that mixes elements from the original television series, Superbad coming-of-age values and the gung-ho rhetoric of Michael Bay's action movies. But there's a…

Comedy DVDs round up - The best and worst

The verdict on DVDs from Richard Herring, Greg Giraldo, Tommy Tiernan and Kevin Bridges

23 Dec 2010

The former Popworld and Never Mind the Buzzcocks host proves that behind the barbed sarcasm, he’s a vulnerable little soul. Over the course of 80 minutes, he chats about his inability to find a good man and his oddball family. A tortured Jewish lad…

Jon Richardson

Fewer laughs per hour than previous years

16 Aug 2010

Richardson’s trademark affable angst spills over into common or garden griping and moaning here (small talk, optimists and sex addicts all incur his wrath), with fewer laughs per hour than previous years. Perhaps the grumpy card has been played to…

Kevin Bridges

SECC, Glasgow, 28 May 2010

3 Jun 2010

Kevin Bridges is Glasgow banter personified. Going to see his live act is akin to getting excellent chat from a local at a wee old man’s pub. The type of pub you can get a whisky and mixer for £1.20. The unusual thing about tonight is that he’s not at a…

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…

Isy Suttie

9 Aug 2007

Initially, on reading that Isy Suttie was once a Daily Telegraph Young Jazz Competition regional winner, I thought it might have been a joke. Yet, on hearing her impersonation of Amy Winehouse falling down a well, allied to her general ability to get a…

All in Good Time

Sweet-natured culture clash comedy starring Amara Karan and Meera Syal

17 Apr 2012

(12A) 93min Originally a 1965 play and subsequently a film by Irish writer Bill Naughton, this sweet-natured comedy became a theatre hit again in 2007 when East is East writer Ayub Khan-Din adapted it into a present-day British-Asian setting. The…

The Midnight Beast - Book At Us Now

Unfunny pop-parody book designed to cash in on upcoming TV fame

18 Oct 2011

(Coronet) ‘We mock the living hell out of stuff for a living,’ claim London pop parody trio The Midnight Beast. Even in this disposable age, simply poking fun at more talented people can only stretch so far before the game is up. Success rarely…

Daniel Sloss - The Joker

Ridiculously talented young comedy buck

12 Aug 2011

Daniel Sloss – a charming, elongated Macaulay Culkin doppelganger, and protégé of Frankie Boyle – begins by listing the reasons why people might not like his show. ‘I smile, I swear, I’m happy and I can jump. The ones who won’t like me, they’re the old…

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - A Romantic Comedy!

Israel and Palestine get it on

18 Aug 2010

MTV meets Middle East politics in this bouncy if disjointed musical offering from Nerdcore Rising director Negin Farsad and Mike Mosallam, where diplomacy is a euphemism for “boning”, rap becomes a weapon of war and Kurt Cobain emerges as a love rival…

Charlyne Yi

Don’t believe the hype

15 Aug 2010

The Assembly Rooms like their north American female comics to be a bit kooky. Maria Bamford and Kristen Schaal have mined an offbeat seam to glory at this venue over the last few years, but Charlyne Yi doesn’t quite have what it takes to follow fully in…

Daniel Sloss: Teenage Kicks

Teaching the older generation a thing or two

10 Aug 2009

There is little doubt whatsoever that Fife-raised lad Daniel Sloss will be a major joke writer and performer in the not too distant future. At the moment, his talent is merely deeply impressive indeed, albeit with a few understandable edges to be…

Danielle Ward

Pacy set that's both clever and funny

7 Aug 2008

'We haven't even flirted with the line yet' warns Danielle Ward as one joke gets a hesitant reaction. She isn't lying; the rest of Ward's material, all rapidly told, invokes death by decapitation, the sex drive of a Siamese twin and some depressing…

Abigail Burdess

16 Aug 2007

Coming out in a wheelchair and disarming everybody with her offbeat chatter, Abigail Burdess shows it’s no big thing to break your foot if you’re a comedian. She warms up the audience with her quirky, wide-eyed observations and quotes from her…

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Crisp restoration of the 1940s satire by Powell and Pressburger

18 May 2012

Spry and delightful nearly 70 years on, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is one of many masterpieces from filmmaking virtuosos Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, collectively known as The Archers. Their fifth collaboration, from 1943, is an…

Outside Bet

Low-budget British horse-racing comedy falls at the first hurdle

18 Apr 2012

(12A) 101mins The cinematic equivalent of the clumps of horse dung that characters repeatedly step into for the cheapest of laughs, Outside Bet is strictly a non-runner in terms of light entertainment. In this painfully naïve British comedy, Bob…

Giants of Comedy – Darren Walsh, Leo Kearse & Lindsay Sharman

They might be giants, and they're definitely tall

26 Aug 2011

There's a Jurassic Park moment on the approach as the ground starts shaking and concentric rings appear in the pints of the wary audience... and then they arrive: the 3 aptly titled Giants of Comedy. Compering by the comparatively short and extremely…

John-Luke Roberts and Nadia Kamil

The comedy duo present the new, adjective-less Behemoth show

15 Aug 2011

It’s no ordinary sketch comedy that we’ve come to expect from the Behemoth pair. Their material is innovative, invested with a delicious sense of the absurd and whilst in places it employs some of the rules of comedy, elsewhere it deliberately bends…

Lesbian Bathhouse

A feminist comic romp

8 Aug 2010

In Helen Eisenbach’s comic piece, actresses turn up for an audition to a sexually charged theatre production, the creation of the heard but never seen Rod Laselle (voiced by Harry Shearer of The Simpsons and Spinal Tap fame). By coincidence, the…

The Muffia

Uncomfortable, unplanned and best avoided

19 Aug 2009

Tight Women is a baffling little number, telling the tale of two market traders fantasising about their own telly show. However, the action is overshadowed by the awkward silence of an audience desperately trying to like and understand the two stars…

Phil Nichol

Fringe favourite hits all the right notes

16 Aug 2009

‘Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be Bobby Spade.’ Phil Nichol’s transformation into a white-suited lounge lizard with a sideline in psychopathy, is so complete that all that’s missing is the trademark Stars in Their Eyes dry-ice intro. Accompanied by jazz…

School for Scandal

School for vandals

13 Aug 2009

RB Sheridan’s classic comedy has much to recommend it in our current era of vacuous celebrity tittle-tattle and grotesque self-interest. Yet the normally admirable Cal McCrystal’s production seems to have read the text so radically against what it seems…

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…

Casa de mi Padre

Will Ferrell's Spanish-language comedy is at once unfunny and too silly to take seriously

11 May 2012

Funnyman Will Ferrell as a tough rancher in a violent Spanish-language Western? It could only be a joke, and that’s exactly what Case de mi Padre is, a ragged, silly spoof in the Airplane/Naked Gun mode. Unfortunately, as jokes go, it’s a not…

Wanderlust

Charmless comedy painfully short on jokes, starring Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston

7 Mar 2012

The actors in Judd Apatow’s Comedy Stable™ have an unfortunate habit of lulling you into a false sense of security. They’ll star in a string of likeable comedies that manage to poke fun at their subject matter (unplanned pregnancy, 40 year old virgins…

The Adopted

Quirky, saccharine directorial debut from French actress Melanie Laurent

24 Jan 2012

(15) 100 mins Still only 28-years-old, French actress and musician Melanie Laurent makes her directorial debut with this offbeat family tale, which owes more to her recent performances in US indie Beginners and the sentimental melodrama The Concert…

Doug Stanhope - Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere

Live DVD from the controversial stand-up

24 Aug 2011

(Roadrunner Comedy) In a short introduction to this wonderfully unhinged film, Doug Stanhope (glass of lager clamped in hand) prepares the viewer to expect the unprofessional. Anyone picking up a copy of Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere…

How to be Awesome

Lou Sanders' high energy can't save a set of lacklustre jokes

15 Aug 2011

‘I’m a bit of shambles’ reveals Lou Sanders as she takes to the stage. Highly energetc Sanders may be, but her material – letters sent to the show, chit-chat about her stepdad, a limp ‘how awesome are my props’ set – fail to hit the mark. Sure, there…

Vive Le Cabaret

Fascinating Aida, Meow Meow and The Penny Dreadfuls head up quality cabaret package

27 Aug 2010

The explosion of cabaret on this year’s Festival circuit has meant that there are plenty of shows whose attitude to quality control is suspect. Thankfully Vive Le Cabaret is a wonderful exception to this. Fronted by the inimitable Des O'Connor – a…

Henry Rollins

Fast-paced spoken word from the punk-rock raconteur

25 Aug 2010

Henry Rollins hates inactivity. His opening salvo – and this is surely the only term to use, as his stream-of-consciousness rants hit home like artillery-fire – concerns his need to exercise earlier in the day, despite it being his scheduled day off…

Nina Conti

A vast talent for voices and timing

22 Aug 2010

‘First rule of performing: make it look easy; second rule: don’t fuck the elephants.’ Since there are no elephants in this show, Nina Conti succeeds in following monkey’s advice impeccably in prising apart the elderly art of ventriloquism in another…

Kevin Bridges

Rising star effortlessly wins over the home crowd

9 Aug 2010

Kevin Bridges’ rapid rise to superstardom appears to have surprised no one as much as Bridges himself. As he ambles onstage to excited chants of ‘Kevin! Kevin!’ there’s an air of bemusement to the youthful funnyman, as though he can’t quite believe that…

Storm Large - Crazy Enough

A musical memoir with bawdy tales

9 Aug 2010

Storm Large is absolutely gorgeous, what with her mile-long legs, blonde locks and cherubic face. But I think she expects us to be shocked with all her talk about fisting. The American rock chick will learn that Fringe audiences have a high capacity for…

Alistair McGowan

Back to the 90s

21 Aug 2009

Next to more recent TV impressionists such as Kevin Bishop and Peter Serafinowicz, Alistair McGowan is a positive veteran. Some 13 years after his last Edinburgh run, he proves that he’s still able to draw on his vast repertoire of voices to comic…

Kevin Bridges

Scotland’s rising star strikes on his Fringe debut

18 Aug 2009

Clydebank’s finest (unless you’re a fan of Duncan Bannatyne or Wet Wet Wet) makes his Fringe debut here with An Hour to Sing for Your Soul. Extra dates were ratcheted onto his schedule after his appearance on that Michael McIntyre vehicle led to a flood…

Richard Herring: Hitler Moustache

Reclaiming symbols and raising standards

10 Aug 2009

A few things have gotten under Richard Herring’s skin of late. He’s hated being misrepresented in the press, got hacked off when his precious iPhone was nicked in open public view and truly bristled when the Great British public stood idly by while the…

Alun Cochrane

The weaver of dreams hits top form again

10 Aug 2009

Alun Cochrane came to the Fringe only a few years ago as a fully-fledged comedy concern. His debut show was the complete package – insightful, endearing, and bloody funny – and after a few visits back trying (and not quite managing) to recapture that…

Sex Drive

8 Jan 2009

COMEDY Determined not to start college a virgin, semi-nerdy teenager Ian (Josh Zuckerman, best known as Young Dr Evil in the Austin Powers sequel Goldmember) drives across country to bed a red-hot babe he met on the internet named Ms Tasty. Fuelled…

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…

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…

Sarah Kendall

16 Aug 2007

Back in the heady days of 2004, Sarah Kendall became the first woman to receive a Perrier nomination in nine years, and deservedly so. Having taken time out to trot the globe, she returned last year with a show that was worryingly patchy and left some…

Lights in the Dusk

21 May 2007

DRAMA/CRIME/COMEDY The final part of Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki’s ‘Loser Trilogy’ (preceded by Drifting Clouds and The Man Without a Past) concerns itself with lonely night watchman Koistinen (Janne Hyytiäinen) who has modest hopes of setting…

Andrew Lawrence

8 Aug 2006

It’s not easy spending an hour in the company of a stick-thin psychotic with the voice of a Joe Pasquale on two packs of Marlboro (the red kind) a day and the kind of glare Charlie Manson took years to cultivate. Even less so when the comic in question…

Mr Blue Sky

Second season of Andrew Collins' warmly cosy Radio 4 comedy

27 Mar 2012

When a recession hits, even optimists can feel the heat. In the opening episode of Mr Blue Sky’s second series lovable oaf Harvey Easter tries a few tricks to save the pennies. Such as walking to the newsagent rather than having his paper delivered…

Iron Sky

Finland's so-so sci-fi comedy could actually benefit from an American remake

19 Mar 2012

Six years in the making, Iron Sky arrives in a blaze of pre-release publicity. Finland’s first blockbuster, partly funded by fans, you certainly can’t quibble with its killer pitch: Nazis on the moon. It’s just a pity that director Timo Vuorensola’s…

Young Adult

A fiercely dark comedy from Juno writer-director team Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman

2 Feb 2012

(15) 94min This reteaming of Juno director (Jason Reitman) and writer (Diablo Cody) is a fiercely dark character comedy that once again demonstrates the pair’s refusal to be limited by genre conventions, no matter how sacred. The set-up is…

Rory Sheridan's Tales of the Antarctica

David O’Doherty in very funny piece that risks becoming one-note in tone

30 Aug 2011

Rory Sheridan is a lovesick man, who inadvertently ends up on an Antarctic expedition to win his bride. Sheridan is no Scott or Shackleton, he complains too much for a start – about the penguins, about the cabbage he has to eat, about the farts that…

Iain Stirling and Sean McLoughlin

The star signing lets down the team

18 Aug 2011

No offence to the jaunty Iain Stirling, but it’s intriguing to wonder what a solo hour with Sean McLoughlin would have turned out like. CBBC’s Scottish presenter Stirling seems billed as the main event here given his status as compere and closing act…

Biscuit and Brawn

Strong chemistry but weak laughs from the comedy duo

15 Aug 2011

Comedy duo Adele Cliff and Kate Cherrell have been performing respectively as Biscuit and Brawn for over two years and this works in their favour: the young duo’s chemistry goes some way to redeeming a mixed bag of sketches and monologues which work…

The Two Wrongies

Confused and confusing naked double-act

14 Aug 2011

It’s unclear where the poorly concealed punches in this crude cabaret of physical comedy are aimed. From five minutes into their performance, the female double-act remains in various states of undress, with predictable simulations of sex and naked…

Katherine Ryan: Little Miss Conception

An edgy story of pageant culture

8 Aug 2011

When Katherine Ryan is stopped in her tracks on hearing that someone in the audience has relatives in her very small Canadian home town of Sarnia, it marks a first for her Fringe debut show. There seems very little that will get in the way of this stage…

Seann Walsh

Making the humdrum hilarious

16 Aug 2010

If you were to sit down and read a full synopsis of Seann Walsh’s debut hour, it might come across as the dullest thing ever. The subjects he takes as his inspiration for comedy would make Michael McIntyre seem like the merged resurrection of Bill Hicks…

Jennifer Coolidge

A CV full of amusing titbits

15 Aug 2010

Tottering on stage in a tight blue dress and heels that are usually only seen on the Fringe at burlesque cabarets or ladyboys gigs, Jennifer Coolidge is here to tell us that she is sick of LA. Hell, she might even decamp to the UK. Implausible as that…

Alfie Brown & Ivo Graham

Rants and interruptions hamper this newbie duo

15 Aug 2010

Maybe they’ve had too many accolades in the past year, including the So You Think You’re Funny title for Graham, and have become complacent. Maybe they were having an off night, or rushed up to Edinburgh, eager to show their talents but not quite sure…

Delete The Banjax

Hyped foursome not quite there yet

13 Aug 2010

Having won over the crowds at last year’s Free Fringe, much was expected of Delete the Banjax with this, their debut paid-for August show. But as much as the quartet try, and boy do they try hard, their Pappy-like mucking-about and wild-eyed enthusiasm…

Reginald D Hunter - Trophy Nigga

Funny but familiar material

9 Aug 2010

While Reg D Hunter remains one of the most compelling presences on the UK comedy stage, it appears that he has become afflicted with Wil Hodgson syndrome. Like the pink-haired Care Bear-lovin’ former communist and wrester from Chippenham, Hunter was a…

Wild Target

9 Jun 2010

(12A) 90min Hitman farce Wild Target consistently shoots wide of the mark in spite of some promising ingredients. A remake of 1994 French film, it’s directed by Jonathan Lynn (My Cousin Vinny, The Whole Nine Yards) and boasts a strong cast…

National Lampoon’s Animal House

23 Oct 2009

(15) 108min John Landis’ seminal 1978 frat house comedy on new digital print. Selected release from Tue 3 Nov.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Inspired take on the Dahl classic

16 Oct 2009

Wes Anderson’s animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s much loved book is no straightforward children’s film. Wee ones might enjoy it to a degree, but they won’t get much of the typically arch humour and wanton eccentricities the filmmaker once again…

Miss March: Generation Penetration

11 Sep 2009

Crude American teen sex comedy (is there any other kind?) about a kid played by burgeoning talent Zach Cregger who awakens from a four-year coma to hear his once virginal high school sweetheart (Raquel Alessi) is now a centerfold in Playboy. So he and…

Alex and Helen's Radio Nowhere

Silly, surreal and sarcastic fun

21 Aug 2009

Like a sort of sarcastic, deadpan orphan Annie, Helen Cripps and her comedy partner Alex Nash show real potential in this mini-comedy drama about a village radio show. Utterly crap phone-ins and jingles, not to mention visual gags and ‘I Saw You…

Ben Dover

Penetrating tales of filth with dodgy jokes

20 Aug 2009

Everyone in the room knows what to expect from this chirpy pornography pioneer. His show is unashamed filth, packed with glorious details of the fascinating world of the professional shagger. In a Festival full of sex tales, it’s intriguing to hear the…

Barry & Stuart

Mischievous manner and playful banter

18 Aug 2009

This Scottish duo combine illusion with the gleefully grotesque in a Penn & Teller stylee. Their mischievous manner and playful banter – with each other and the audience – serves to amuse and their tricks amaze (and in some cases disgust). It’s a strong…

Dan Antopolski

Daring comedy and the odd rap

11 Aug 2009

Having returned last year after a lengthy absence from Edinburgh to go and have kids and stuff, Antopolski is now firmly back where he belongs, in the body of the Fringe kirk. With a battery of fine gags honed to shiny perfection, he can indulge himself…

Thankless Child

Amusing tales are found amongst the wackiness

11 Aug 2009

Two decent actors get beyond some initial wackiness to offer up amusing cautionary tales in which milk is spilled and eggs are regrettably put in the one basket. It should actually be hateful, but they rescue it by pulling in the reins at the last…

Marcus Brigstocke

Preaching to the converted

10 Aug 2009

In God Collar, Marcus Brigstocke treads the well-worn path of questioning religion, albeit with wistful curiosity rather than a Dawkins-style damnation of all things spiritual. Brigstocke wants something to fill an empty space in his soul, which lends…

Fired Up!

9 Jul 2009

Two sex-hungry high school jocks, who don’t fancy summer in a baking hot football training camp, decide to infiltrate the girls’ cheerleader training instead. It’s a blatantly misogynist notion for comedy, yet director Will Gluck pulls off a far better…

Miss March

11 Jun 2009

COMEDY 20th Century Fox’s recent decision to abandon their Fox Atomic subsidiary stemmed from the failure of such ghastly teenage fare as The Rocker and Miss March. This leaden buddy comedy features Eugene (Zach Cregger) and Tucker (Trevor Moore…

The Rocker

16 Oct 2008

COMEDY Twenty years on from being dumped by big haired ‘soft-cock rock’ 80s legends Vesuvius, drummer Fish (Rainn Wilson) still burns with the indignation of the holy. While crashing at his sister’s house he agrees to be the drummer for his nephew’s…

National Lampoon's Cattle Call

4 Sep 2008

It’s a shame that National Lampoon, long associated with tasteless but somehow crudely endearing comedy, should have lent its name to this effort by writer/director Martin Guigui (Swing, Changing Hearts). In it, we meet three young males who hatch a…

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…

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…

Jim Jeffries

How to lose your crowd in one horrible hour

14 Aug 2008

No one expects fluffy, cuddly material from Jim Jeffries. The Australian comic is infamous for his potty-mouthed, middle-finger-up comedy, and he'll trash anything - cancer, self-harmers, molested children - as long as it gets a laugh. But unlike other…

Alpha Males

Savage indictment of brutish blokes

14 Aug 2008

Last year, our introduction to Victor Legit ended in a shocking explosion of abrasive violence. This time around, the finale from the slightly corrupt but quick-thinking officer of FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) occurs in similarly gory…

Russell Kane

Essex boy made good

7 Aug 2008

While a cursory glance at the Fringe programme might suggest that being blessed with the forename Dan (including such variations as Danny/Danielle) might be the best way to fast-track towards a career in comedy, the nation's Russells are arguably the…

Alun Cochrane

Dad talk amid the credit crunch

7 Aug 2008

Last summer, the tallest Yorkshire-Glaswegian on the comedy circuit opted not to bring himself up to the Fringe. Not because he was writing a sitcom or developing a novel or workshopping sketch ideas; his absence was down to the more noble activity of…

In Search of a Midnight Kiss

5 Jun 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (15) 99min Writer/director Alex Holdridge’s dispatch from the frontline of the LA dating scene is exactly what it depicts: a witty, slight affair. Wilson (Scoot McNairy) is a detached single desperate for a date to provide him with a…

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…

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…

Mark Watson

16 Aug 2007

Mark Watson deserves his moment. Having proved to be one of the true innovators on the Fringe with his marathon comedy sessions, off-the-cuff novel writing and participation in daft quizzes, his solo hour of stand-up has grown in stature and scope in…

Dark Horse

11 Dec 2006

The first hour of Icelander Dagur Kári’s follow up to Nói Albínói is just as good as his quirky debut. Daniel (Jakob Cedergren) is a graffiti artist who makes money by taking commissions to write girls’ names on walls for men who are trying to impress…

Jeff, Who Lives at Home

The Duplass Brothers' slacker comedy bears too much resemblance to its underachieving protagonist

18 Apr 2012

(15) 83mins No one would have believed in the last years of the 20th century that of all the stars to emerge from Judd Apatow’s extraordinary talent nursery Freaks and Geeks, the household name would end up being Jason Segel. He’s not as gorgeous as…

Mirror Mirror

Snarky re-telling of the Snow White myth, with the odd visual flourish

5 Apr 2012

Tarsem Singh is a frustrating director; he has a canny eye for striking imagery, but an uncanny knack for picking scripts with little or no charm (The Fall being his sole exception so far). So it was with J-Lo vehicle The Cell and Clash of the Titans…

Fist of Fun

Stewart Lee and Richard Herring's debut TV appearance given a DVD outing

28 Feb 2012

‘It’s not as good as I remembered’. Thus sprach Stewart Lee about the first series of Fist of Fun, the BBC Two show which first introduced the bequiffed comic and Richard Herring, his cohort of many years, to a TV audience. While it might not be…

Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

By-the-numbers old age comedy drama

10 Feb 2012

Early in this by-the-numbers comedy drama, a young salesperson eagerly enthuses to retiring couple Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Jean (Penelope Wilton) that 'the grey pound is very strong at the moment'. We’re quite clearly supposed to see this…

Carnage

Polanski's comedy of upper-middle class savagery is fast, funny and filthy

24 Jan 2012

(15) 79mins Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s play Gods of Carnage opens with a playground spat. Set over the opening credits, it’s this innocuous bust-up that drives the bitterly funny four-hander, as the parents of both children try to…