Comedy and Brian Donaldson

Katherine Ryan: Little Miss Conception

Canadian comedian's hits Edinburgh with show about crucial early years

6 Jul 2011

As a little girl growing up in the Canadian smalltown of Sarnia (not a made-up place), Katherine Ryan’s parents put her forward into those pageants that only north Americans are capable of laying on. Yet even at an early age, Ryan showed a healthy…

Highlights from the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe programme

Daniel Kitson, Billy the Mime and Paolo Bianchi set to appear

22 May 2012

The Fringe madness is looming on the horizon and as long as the nation isn’t holed up with Olympics fever, this could well be another record-breaking year. You’ll be less than surprised to hear there’s a massive amount of comedy on show, including a…

Profile - The Wee Man

29 Nov 2007

Who’s he then? Creation of Neil Bratchpiece, smallest comedy member of the not very tall Bratchpiece Family, The Wee Man is a pure wee basturt Burberry fiend whose stage demeanour ranges wildly from quite threatening to really very threatening…

US TV comedy reviews - 2 Broke Girls and Suburgatory

Two sitcoms let down by overt product placement

18 Apr 2012

There could be a theme developing here. In the pilot episode for New Girl, scatty teacher Zooey Deschanel discovered her live-in man was cheating on her and left to wind up rooming with three guys. In the opening episode of 2 Broke Girls (E4, Thu, 9pm…

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…

Comedy picks for the Edinburgh Fringe 2011

20 Jul 2011

David O’Doherty Two shows this year from the beloved man of lo-fi musical comedy with the high-laugh quotient. His usual brilliant sit-down/stand-up fare, David O’Doherty is Looking Up, is augmented by his debut on the one-man comic play scene. Rory…

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…

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…

The Hot 100 2010 - Mark Millar, Kevin Bridges and Alasdair Gray take top 3 spots

Our annual chart of the people from Scotland being interesting, successful and creative

16 Dec 2010

The Hot 100 is a list of Scots who’ve made a sizeable creative splash in 2010. It includes musicians, artists, writers, actors, fashion designers, technological innovators, shop owners, festival directors, record label heads and one mad cyclist.

Different strokes

1 Aug 2007

Having written one of the UK’s finest ever sitcoms, Sean Lock is back pounding the beat on the stand-up stage. Brian Donaldson talks to the man who has finally left bitterness behind

Junior Melting Pot proves kids can be funny

The show features young performers with both established and original material

22 May 2012

Perhaps it’s been a side effect of the old showbusiness adage about not working with children or animals, but when you see kids in comedy sketch shows, we are usually asked to laugh at youngsters saying things that adults might say (more often than not…

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…

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…

Five of the best free Comedy shows at the Fringe 2010

We count the pennies and decide it’s time to get some laughs for nowt

29 Jul 2010

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Romantic Comedy Back in 1948, two people(s) met at a convention in Geneva and fell in love. But they’ve been at each other’s throats for some time now. Will they ever learn to get along? Perhaps only in a two-person…

An Hour to Sing fo Your Soul - Kevin Bridges' stand-up show

23 Jul 2009

When comics make their Fringe debuts, many of them are hell-bent on working up the biggest theme their minds and mouths can maintain over the course of an hour. Not such manufactured tosh for a guy like Kevin Bridges, the latest in a long line of great…

Dommett & Lapaert

Material tossed aside for engaging tomfoolery

13 Aug 2010

The bubbling confidence of manic youthery shines through this knockabout gig as Joel Dommett and Eric Lampaert take turns in undermining the other’s half-hour(ish) set. Sending slickness home for the night with a tenner in its back pocket, this is a…

Ventriloquist Nina Conti brings new show to Fringe

Talk to the Hand brings chat-show format to puppetry

29 Jul 2010

Once a reluctant ventriloquist, Nina Conti is now exploring the possibilities of the form. Brian Donaldson hears about weird gigs and strange road trips

5 Things You Might Not Know About... Pam Ayres

18 Mar 2010

1. Her first job was as a clerk in the Civil Service, before joining the Air Force, where she was posted to Singapore. It was there that Ayres first started performing poetry for her mates and when she came home she kept her schtick up by doing shows in…

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…

Interview: Stewart Francis

The Canadian comedian discusses Bill Hicks, Ricky Gervais and the other Stu Francis

28 Feb 2012

When he first arrived in the UK, there was a recurring subject that would crop up around any discussion of Canadian comic Stewart Francis: was he aware of the iconic 80s kids show presenter who shared that name and boasted a catchphrase about his…

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…

Hot 100 2011 - No. 49 to 1

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

The Hot 100 is the definitive list of Scottish creative talent. From fashion designers to performance artists, everyone who has made a sizeable splash in 2011 has a place in this countdown. It’s for people who’ve created a buzz, but it’s also about…

The Baby Diary

Wry play featuring couple soon to be parents

23 Aug 2011

Emily Watson Howes’ wry play features a couple soon to become parents: she’s suitably over-excited, he’s more concerned about losing his pet rabbit Duncan as he relates to his filmed ‘dadblog’. For a piece about the relentless march of technology, it’s…

5 things you might not know about... Shappi Khorsandi

Some lesser-known snippets about the British-Iranian comedian

4 Mar 2011

1 Khorsandi grew up in west London in the 1980s after her Iranian family fled in exile to the UK. At the age of 11, she wrote to the Ayatollah Khomeini to ask him not to kill her father, a journalist and comedian whose stock-in-trade was political…

Joey Page

A distinctive voice that belongs to someone else

23 Aug 2009

Joey Page comes to Edinburgh for his full Fringe debut with a ringing endorsement in his lugs from Noel Fielding. Which is as good an explanation as any why a large proportion of the decently-numbered Caves gathering look like the sort of people who go…