Comedy, Reviews, Miles Fielder

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Populaire

15 Feb 20133 stars

Immaculately styled French period romcom starring Déborah Francois and Romain Duris

This immaculately styled French period romantic comedy signals its pedigree with a colourful cartoon credit sequence reminiscent of cute and kookie Hollywood comedies circa the 1950s and 60s. And in fact, co-writer and director Régis Roinsard’s feature…

Run for Your Wife

11 Feb 20131 star

Hopelessly dated and poorly executed comedy starring Danny Dyer

This comprehensively cack-handed adaptation of the long-running West End stage sex comedy will have all but the most thick of skin and dim of humour running from the cinema as though their very lives depended up on it. Co-director and screenwriter Ray…

Phil Nichol Rants!

22 Aug 20124 stars

Mercurial Canadian comedian rages, blusters, fumes and seethes

The hard-working, hyperactive Fringe veteran, who’s also appearing in his Comedians Theatre Company production of the play The Intervention, can hardly contain everything he wants to say within this single hour of stand-up. And he doesn’t. Before the…

Anne Edmonds in My Banjo’s Name is Steven

21 Aug 20123 stars

Aussie musical stand-up built on good audience interaction

The unwaveringly energetic and unfailingly upbeat Aussie comedian clearly feels she’s a bit too full on for her lunchtime time lot. But, actually, her bright demeanour and likeable manner makes her well suited to the daylight hours. For her Fringe…

Laurence Clark: Inspired

21 Aug 20123 stars

Stimulating comedy from comedian with cerebral palsy

When a fan tweeted Clark saying his show was ‘inspiring’, the comedian with cerebral palsy found the comment so condescending he was inspired to write a new one about what is truly inspirational and what is bollocks. During the course of the show, Clark…

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Danielle Ward: Speakeasy/Playdead

21 Aug 20123 stars

Wobbly but winning stand-up

One of the two shows the English comedian is performing on alternate nights is billed as Speakeasy. Accordingly, as the audience take their seats, Ward, who’s dressed in an all-in-one trouser suit with a stylish retro print, pours cocktails for those…

Guardian Reader

20 Aug 20123 stars

Liberal leftie humour from William Hammer-Lloyd

The anonymous reader is a tall, lanky, floppy-haired, bearded, liberal, leftie, upper-middle class intellectual and former teacher. In other words, he’s the archetypal reader of the newspaper affectionately known as The Grauniad. Having become all too…

Alexis Dubus: Cars & Girls

19 Aug 20123 stars

Too much of a good thing

This exuberant English comedian is too clever for his own good. Alexis Dubus’ new show draws upon some seriously crazy travel adventures he’s undertaken, including a trip to – and at – the psychedelic Burning Man Festival in the American desert. What…

The Chris and Paul Show

13 Aug 20122 stars

Almost (great) silent comedy

This north American comedy duo have got two very good things going for them: they’re pretty adept at performing silent comedy and they’re reminiscent of that great post-war double act Abbot and Costello. But they really need to tighten up their act. For…

Marek Larwood: Typecast

13 Aug 20123 stars

Pleasing pratfalls from former We Are Klangster

The former We Are Klangster’s solo show is manic and messy. However, Larwood holds it together, and generates considerable laughter, chiefly by dint of his unenviable – and sort of charming - ability to make himself look like a complete pratt while at…

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The Freewheelin' Cariad Lloyd

11 Aug 20123 stars

A shaky start gives way to a turbo-charged character comedy show

Last year’s Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Newcomer nominee returns with that ‘difficult second show’ (her words) which, as it turns out, gets off to a wobbly start but ends with the kind of big bang that that leaves one wanting to see a lot more of this…

Shappi Khorsandi: Dirty Looks and Hopscotch

11 Aug 20123 stars

Consummate if conventional comedy from the Iranian comic

From the outset, the Iranian comedian has the crowd in the palm of her hand. Shappi Khorsandi is confident and charming and cute, and she seems to know just how far to push the lewd jokes. And the large audience that’s largely made up of an elderly…

WitTank

11 Aug 20122 stars

Disappointing show from the recently televised comedy trio

The comedy troupe of three return to the Fringe after a bout at the Beeb with more of their quick and quicker-fire sketch show fare. Occupying the ground between enthusiastic amateurs and reliable professionals, WitTank tick all the boxes with a show…

Tea with the Old Queen

9 Aug 20123 stars

Highly entertaining high-camp treat

Writer-performer Graham Woolnough’s one-man show provides us with a delightfully indiscreet behind-the-scenes look at the lives of Britain’s royal family, as told through the fictional diaries of the Queen Mother’s bitchy old queen of a butler…

Big Sean, Mikey and Me

8 Aug 20123 stars

Edinburgh boy's three persona act is blackly comic and heartfelt

An autobiographical, confessional one-man show written and performed by young(ish) Edinburgh-born actor Ruaraidh Murray, who appeared in the stage revival of Trainspotting (to which text Murray’s show shares some similarities). Taking stock of his life…

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Mae Martin: Mae Day

7 Aug 20123 stars

Charmingly neurotic show from the multi-talented Candian

She’s good-looking in a gamine kind of way, dresses stylishly in old-school punk fashion, has got strong voice for singing songs, can play the guitar and seems pretty relaxed standing in front of a crowd chatting into the mic. So it comes as a surprise…

Claudia O’Doherty: The Telescope

7 Aug 20123 stars

Carefully orchestrated chaos from the frantic Aussie comic

This frenetic Aussie comedian’s borderline hysterical show begins with O’Doherty telling all about her indoctrination into a cult-like comedy school called The Nuthouse, where she was brainwashed into becoming a stand-up. Next, we’re told she has had…

Thom Tuck Flips Out

6 Aug 20123 stars

Posh boy stand-up from the ex-Penny Dreadful

Having graduated from sketch show The Penny Dreadfuls to a solo stand-up routine revolving around his love-hate relationship with straight-to-DVD Disney movies, Tuck returns to the Fringe with a new show that’s less focused thematically but generally…

Jessica Fostekew: Brave New Word

5 Aug 20123 stars

Funny and fascinating exploration of words

Generally speaking, sitting in front of a stand-up comedian for an hour is an educational experience (even if the only thing you learn is that you want to be somewhere else). Happily, sharing 60 minutes with Jessica Fostekew is a learning curve in the…

George Ryegold's God-in-a-Bag

5 Aug 20123 stars

Toby Williams' comic character creation scrapes close to the bone

If God-In-A-Bag was on TV, it would be a fairly conventional sitcom, but on stage it becomes something altogether more entertaining. That’s partly down to a script which is punctuated with the kind of risqué jokes – a blow-by-blow review of a porn film…

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Pat Burtscher’s Patopotamoose

3 Aug 20124 stars

Slapdash, very funny routine from Canadian comic

A Patopotamoose is, by another name, a McGuffin. In this instance, it’s a nonsense title this whacked-out young Canadian comic gave his show before he’d written it in order to secure a spot on the Fringe. So Burtscher tells us. But did he write a show…

Stephen Carlin: Pandas vs Penguins

3 Aug 20123 stars

Impish Scottish comic talks animals

Stephen Carlin has a theory that humanity can be neatly divided into two types: those who exhibit the social and psychological characteristics of Chinese bears, and those whose behaviour mirrors the Antarctic bird. That the Scottish stand-up disproves…

Revisiting: The Apartment

13 Jun 20125 stars

Comic charm and caustic humour ensure Billy Wilder’s Oscar-winning film is as appealing as ever

When it was first released back in 1960, The Apartment was a commercial and critical success, securing 10 Oscar nominations and five wins, among them Best Director and Screenplay for its director Billy Wilder and his co-writer IAL Diamond. Four decades…

Joost Swarte: Is That All There Is?

3 Feb 20124 stars

Compendium of the Dutch cartoonist’s satirical alternative comics

Apparently so. Or almost so. Is That All There Is? collects virtually all of the Dutch cartoonist’s alternative comics from way back in 1972 to the present day, translates them into English and assembles them, under Swarte’s own supervision, in this…

Danny Pensive’s Map of Britain

15 Aug 20114 stars

Wonderfully odd character comedy

This character comedy is so assured, odd and sweet, that you can easily see the self-styled Sunderland simpleton becoming the next score keeper on Shooting Stars. During his whistle-stop recollection of a three-year trip around Britain, Pensive…