Comedy, Reviews, Brian Donaldson

Stewart Lee: 41st Best Stand Up Ever!

DVD

4 Sep 2008

When Stewart Lee first wrote this 2007 show, he was seriously hacked off with the BBC. Having been commissioned by the corporation to make a series of half-hour comedies which would feature Lee performing in front of unusual audiences (a group of…

Terry Saunders

26 Aug 2008

In the dank bowels of the ghost-ridden Baby Belly 3, where it rains indoors no matter what it’s doing outside (though, let's face it, chances are it’ll be raining there too), two shows from likeably nervy individuals addressed obsessions with varying…

Omid Djalili

26 Aug 2008

No one can really deny the lofty position that Omid Djalili now occupies in the British comedy world. Having begun in the Fringe wastelands a decade ago, he can pop by to do a week here fresh from a BBC1 Saturday night show deemed so successful by the…

Otis Lee Crenshaw

Season pro stil has fire in his belly

22 Aug 2008

Rich Hall is a man who know show to treat his audience right. While his gigs as plain old Rich Hall back in the mid to late 90s helped forge a ridiculously high standard for the next generation of Fringe stand-ups, it was as C&W legend Otis Lee Crenshaw…

The Hollywood Outlaw Comedy Tour

Not a killer in the house

22 Aug 2008

You know things have gone badly wrong when comics are blaming the audience for the icy atmosphere at a gig. In this instance it was each and every one of the four stand-ups who comprise the Hollywood Outlaw Comedy gang who in their own individual way…

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…

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…

Ali Cook

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.

…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…

Louis CK

Brilliant comedic rants far from negative

19 Aug 2008

There's little fanfare about Louis CK when he takes to the stage for the second of his two Pleasance Courtyard dates. With the lights dimmed, a slow roar has built which completely drowns out the introduction (his status is so big he doesn't have to…

John Pinette

Say yeah yeah to big bad John

14 Aug 2008

Since getting Jerry and co locked up in the grand finale of Seinfeld, John Pinette has spent the last decade making a name for himself on Broadway and in Hollywood. Having worked with the likes of Sinatra, Arnie and Travolta, he may not need the Fringe…

Pajama Men

Fantastic yet familiar physical horseplay

14 Aug 2008

The Fringe traditionally gets its unfair share of headlines for being a hotbed of nudity and a feast of skin-baring. But two guys in their jimmy-jams before the watershed? What gives? The massively innovative North American double act of Shenoah Allen…

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…

Andrew Lawrence

14 Aug 2008

Lawrence may be cleaner cut than the former tramp-devil he once 'played', but that hasn't dampened the amusing malevolence seeping from his mouth. He isn't the only comic this year to make the connection between the Shannon Matthews discovery and the…

Andy Zaltzman

14 Aug 2008

Political comedy may have been on the wane for some time, but thanks to this Art Garfunkel doppelganger, it's heart-warming to see that the flame is still burning somewhere. The Olympics, credit crunch and Mugabe naturally get a full airing, but…

Creation Nation

14 Aug 2008

A chat show hosted by two camp New Yorkers which falls into disrepair when they can't decide whether to have a fall-out or make a pass at one another. Unhilarious footage of main guy Billy Willing annoying punters at NYC's Fashion Week might be so 1998…

Glenn Wool

14 Aug 2008

Following on from his shaggy-dog surrealist wanderings of last year, Canada's loudest man gives us a bit more of a structure and pumps us with a little more laughing gas as he considers the repercussions of his divorce and an incident from his teen…

Isabel Fay

14 Aug 2008

There's an energetic and quirky charm about Fay's set of oddball characters that makes it hard to hate them, but with a little extra work on the script, we could have loved these failures a bit more. The arachnophobe drafted in for a spider exhibition…

It is Rocket Science!

14 Aug 2008

With a jolly hockey sticks approach to her show, Helen Keen makes a good fist at keeping the laughs bubbling along with this haphazard look at science and its wacky ways. A sidekick is on hand to help out with some shadow puppetry and a human wormhole…

Joanna Neary

Character comedy of the highest order

14 Aug 2008

Joanna Neary starts her show off in edgy fashion. She's an absolute bag of nerves and there's a real danger that this ropey opening might be translating itself to her audience. But fear not, it's just one of the many beautifully crafted characters that…

Jon Richardson

The mutt's nuts is wearing the cat's pyjamas

14 Aug 2008

Living on your own might be fraught with danger and potential misery, but it doesn't half give a decent comic shedloads of material for a show. And fortunately, Jon Richardson is more than just a decent comic; he's a true star in the ascendant. This…

Lady Garden

14 Aug 2008

With Adrian Edmondson and Jennifer Saunders in the crowd, it's no surprise to learn that the cast list revealed that one of the young comic actresses has the surname 'Edmondson'. But the talent on stage was spread widely throughout some spot-on sketches…

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…

Pappy's Fun Club

14 Aug 2008

The sleeper hit of 2007, PFC storm back with Funergy (is it possible to have a laugh and be environmentally friendly at the same time?), with an avid following cracking up at every daft aside or snippet of nonsense. There's an early-Boosh charm to all…

Quincy: Single Mum

14 Aug 2008

Quincy has a good story to tell of becoming a single dad in tragic circumstances but, perhaps understandably, there doesn't seem to be enough genuine humour there to keep the momentum up. A different batch of material might suit his likeable manner and…

Rule of Three

14 Aug 2008

Steering too close to the wind of cliché (kids becoming 'street', Aussie extreme sports guys, City workers being arrogant and loud), this trio get their teeth into some better material which just about sustains the hour. The sleazy boss and the…

Sarah Millican

The young Thora Hird gets down and dirty

14 Aug 2008

Judging by her light Geordie tones, you'd never find Sarah Millican staggering around the Toon with skirt hitched up to her neck, tanked up on Breezers and yelling filthy abuse at anyone with a member. Then again, even though she's been dubbed 'a young…

Tea and Cake II

14 Aug 2008

About as appetising as a raspberry lasagne, the Tea and Cake crew's latest show is tediously hellbent on giving bad mime a kicking. Targets hardly come much softer than that and it's tempting to imagine a mime group showing footage of this hour as the…

The Americans

14 Aug 2008

A typical US family gather up to see how they are going to deal with the threats looming over their way of life. Dad Sam, mom Libby (Liberty: geddit?) and gobby daughter Mary (sounds a bit like America, apparently) tackle the issues with sketches broken…

The Cup

14 Aug 2008

COMEDY DRAMA BBC2, Thu 21 Aug, 9.30pm Do we really need another fly-on-the-wall docu-comedy-drama about flawed individuals living out their largely miserable lives? Apparently so, as The Cup smashes its way towards us with more ‘subtle’ humour and…

The Guru

14 Aug 2008

With his 'Madonna' sidekick, Guru John Popolini (GJP) is determined to make us fulfil our potential and open up a wealth of opportunity. Coincidentally in the same room that Jackson's Way got us all hyped up on motivation, Popolini whips up a character…

The Real Daniel O'Donnell Show

14 Aug 2008

Witching hour tales of semi-terror have become such a hackneyed notion now that only the most brilliant of scripts can lift them above the ordinary. This failure has a couple of decent ideas (the shy ghost and Tales of the Unexpected dancers) but the…

Zoe Gardner's Fault

14 Aug 2008

Previously one half of the Congress of Oddities, Gardner is hardly to blame for there being a dearth of quality character comics this year and she does her utmost to pull the genre out of the mire. Sticking a wig on to play her shrill producer and…

Adams & Rea

Jokey folky afternoon amusement

7 Aug 2008

One has a pointy chin and is in therapy. The other is Aussie and has issues with her comedy partner. Welcome to the warm, witty and slightly witchy world of Adams & Rea, whose collected CV includes Jade the Folk Singer, a Funny Women award and a cameo…

Alcock Improv

Hateful yet seemingly hilarious ad libbing

7 Aug 2008

Apparently this lot are causing sleepless nights for the Cambridge Footlights crowd, as the establishment quake in their boots as the Alcock crew go around snapping at their improvised heels. The whole ad-lib game is at best hit and miss, and at worst…

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…

Andrew Bird

7 Aug 2008

Ten years ago, obsessive Oasis fan Bird wondered where he'd be now. If he dreamed of being a run-of-the mill stand-up with perfectly amiable but less than outstanding material, then job's a good 'un.

Idiots of Ants

Messing about with form and content

7 Aug 2008

To the rousing theme of Grandstand, this quartet of white-shirted, black-tied lads (still not sure whether they're more idiotic or antlike?) race into the venue. For the previous few minutes, we've been looking at them on screens prancing around London…

Jeff Kreisler

US comic mines the land of the free

7 Aug 2008

When you see Jeff Kreisler at work, armed with the knowledge that he has won something called the Bill Hicks Spirit Award, it can occasionally cross your mind that he scooped the thing for getting the mannerisms of the dead Southern stand-up/preacher…

Josh Howie

7 Aug 2008

Don't expect to see PR guru Lynne Franks at this show, for Howie is the son who had to go along with his mum's wacky Jewish then Buddhist then Native American then Jewish-again ways throughout his childhood, which is extremely funny - now that he can…

Josie Long

A logic-defying show about science

7 Aug 2008

The queen of lo-fi is back with kitsch artefacts all around and a scattery mind deep within. This year her comedy patchwork has Josie Long fiddling around with science, a subject she studied at school (for 'studied' read 'sat with her head on the desk…

Kerry Godliman

7 Aug 2008

Is life full of expectations that have absolutely no chance of being fulfilled? Godliman had a eureka moment in a Little Chef which opened up a world of disappointment to her and a wealth of amusing tales told with verve and panache. You'll be talking…

Martha McBrier

7 Aug 2008

It's quite hard to get your head round what Glaswegian comic McBrier is trying to achieve on stage. With the barest of material (something or other to do with belief systems) she relies on her audience not only for suggestions but actually to inject…

Morgan Murphy

7 Aug 2008

Coming across like a female Todd Barry, Murphy's deadpan approach does nothing other than bring her crowd down: only a comic with killer material can afford to do that. It's a sad state of affairs when the guy playing your shrink in the elongated VT…

Pippa Evans

Turning loneliness into laughter

7 Aug 2008

Ushering her audience through to their seats in the guise of an Australian lifestyle coach who runs classes in helping people deal (very badly) with crippling symptoms of loneliness, Pippa Evans begins a thoroughly mixed character show. Runner-up in…

Pros from Dover

A riot of innovative sketching

7 Aug 2008

It's not enough these days for sketch show gangs to trot merrily on stage before simply delivering sketches followed by skits and topped off with some shards of broken comedy. Somehow the form needs to be shaken up, given a twist, dealt a postmodern…

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…

Tom Allen

7 Aug 2008

There's a place in the theatre for Allen, because stand-up comedy is not his forté. The pleasure in his tale of finding some meaning in his family history is all in the telling; at the climax, Allen pretty much admits himself that the content is sadly…

Umbrella Birds

Sweating out life's problems

7 Aug 2008

Mark Watson is no longer the hardest working performer on the Fringe. That accolade may actually go to Emily Watson Howes who just so happens to be the popular stand-up's good lady missus. Not only is she the creator and director of World War II drama…

The Kevin Bishop Show

31 Jul 2008

COMEDY Channel 4, Fri 1 Aug, 10pm Like the mighty Bobby Davro, Kevin Bishop can do a fair old impersonation or two (his Jonathan Ross and Gary Lineker are awesome) but can’t get any material around them to save his life. There have been boasts made…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Deborah Frances-White

16 Aug 2007

The bowler-hatted one is back with an advice shop for men and women on seduction techniques. You know a show is struggling when the comic takes a seat in the front row to let her audience play out the scenarios she’s dreamed up, leaving a series of…

Field Study

16 Aug 2007

A virtually laugh-free show about three scientists analysing the mechanics of comedy is an irony lost on no one. The young trio try their damndest but there simply is no material here worthy of the name as they mug their way through an hour’s tortured…

Jimmy Tingle

16 Aug 2007

As the US satirist launches his Presidential campaign, not in the States but in Scotland, it’s all too clear that it’s doomed to the same failure as Doug Stanhope’s bid. Despite having some original/wacko ideas, when it comes to getting this across in…

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…

Miles Jupp

16 Aug 2007

There are few things in life quite so satisfying than seeing a posh person throwing a bit of a wobbler. And so it’s with great pleasure that Miles Jupp brings us Everyday Rage and Dinner Party Chit Chat, a perusal of the moments in life when Jupp…

The Mercer Island Rodeo

16 Aug 2007

Apparently, this Irish troupe are an award-winning sketch team. Best Irish sketch show with the word ‘Rodeo’ in the title is the only thing I could imagine they’ve won. The energy is there, but slack writing lets it all down. Still, there’s plenty of…

Victor

16 Aug 2007

Victor Legit is a zealot of the Federation Against Copyright Theft, steadfast in his mission to stem the tide of Korean-influenced DVD piracy. With a smart script and near-flawless delivery, the subtle details are embellished with some gory FX and a…