Comedy and Miles Fielder

Apocalypse archives: Whit Stillman

The Damsels in Distress director picks five films he’d save in an impending apocalypse

17 Apr 2012

That Sinking Feeling (Bill Forsyth, 1980) ‘I wanted to include something Scottish. Aside from how enjoyable Bill Forsyth’s film about kids in rainy Glasgow is, I want to include it for its economy of means. To see how much was done with so little was…

Joost Swarte: Is That All There Is?

Compendium of the Dutch cartoonist’s satirical alternative comics

3 Feb 2012

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…

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…

Danny Pensive’s Map of Britain

Wonderfully odd character comedy

15 Aug 2011

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…

Chris Coxen’s Space Clone Audition

Accomplished character-based comedy show

14 Aug 2011

Framing his sketch show as a competition in which the audience decides which of Coxen’s four characters will be cloned to populate outer space seems unnecessary. This US comic’s creations - sleazy lounge lizard, deluded motivational speaker, shy weather…

Hal Sparks - Evolution Overdrive

Impressive delivery with theme of humankind’s ongoing evolution

8 Aug 2011

Humankind’s ongoing evolution from apes is the buff American stand-up’s central thesis. En route to his conclusion that only the reintroduction of dinosaurs into the food chain will save us, Sparks blasts the crowd with a string of more commonplace…

Pete Firman: Jiggery Pokery

Magic routines with an enjoyable line in potty-mouthed sarcasm

8 Aug 2011

This comic magician takes his tricks seriously. From the opening escape out of a locked box through various sleight-of-hand illusions to the climactic guillotining of an audience member, Firman proves himself to be a very capable conjurer. But he also…

Bridget Christie

Slapdash slapstick sloppy stand-up

7 Aug 2011

The wife, mum and stand-up is back at the Fringe with a new show based on her Catholic upbringing. The fact that Bridget Christie is not at all sure doing an hour about religion is a good idea is completely in keeping with her happily shambolic…

Kim Cattrall, star of Sex and the City, discusses her new film Meet Monica Velour

Indie comedy about an aging porn star is set to screen at the EIFF

27 May 2011

‘To have a role like this in your fifties is quite extraordinary,’ says Kim Cattrall, who is 53 and has made a virtue of playing sexy older women in a business that refuses to equate the one with the other. ‘When Meet Monica Velour showed at the Tribeca…

SG Browne - Breathers: A Zombie's Lament

Cinematic satirical debut novel already in film development

11 Feb 2011

As openings go, this one is an attention-grabber. Imagine you’ve just woken up to discover your parents’ corpses have been put in the fridge freezer, only to realise that you, their 21-year-old son, stuck them there. And all because you are a newly…

Sammy J

Transgressive flights of fancy

25 Aug 2010

Exceedingly likeable and not above telling traditional jokes and singing conventional songs, this gangly Melbourne comic’s true talent lies in his transgressive flights of fancy. J’s opening routine concerning a ‘double cock con’ he was part of at a…

Addy van der Borgh

Thoroughly engaging show themed around language

23 Aug 2010

Given his frequent recourse to mirthful actorly pronouncements – ‘forsooth!’ and the like – Van der Borgh must have been a thespian in a previous life. That, along with his merrily clownish countenance, serves him well in a thoroughly engaging show…

Strong and Wrong

Lame sketches fall an awful long way short of the music

23 Aug 2010

This lively duo come across like a pair of children’s TV entertainers who can certainly hold a tune. The handful of comic songs employing guitar, ukulele and banjo that punctuate their quick-fire sketch show are punchy and well-performed. It’s a shame…

Andi Osho

Serious stuff, but Osho’s funny with it

23 Aug 2010

The recollection of being subjected to racist abuse as a kid inspired this East End of London stand-up to explore her Nigerian roots and appraise the state of Britain’s dysfunctional multi-culture society. Serious stuff, but Osho’s funny with it…

Robert White

Get him on Shooting Stars

18 Aug 2010

There are plenty of Fringe comics whose schtick is being gloriously unhinged, but there aren’t many who appear to be genuinely out of control. This baby-faced comedian with a bleached Tintin kiss-curl definitely falls into the latter category. Throwing…

The Gold Rush

Both versions of the Chaplin classic with lots of features

17 Aug 2010

Given that The Gold Rush was his most ambitious production, and that it was the film he wanted to be remembered for, it’s unsurprising that Chaplin should have returned to it 17 years after he made it in 1925 to re-edit, score and add narration.

Vladimir McTavish

Thoroughly entertaining crawl through the national beverage

16 Aug 2010

Given the liberal passing round of sample nips of the water of life, McTavish’s show is not, as suggested in its title of Whisky: An Idiot’s Guide, a sobering examination of Scotland’s top export. It is, however, a thoroughly entertaining crawl through…

Clever Peter

Generally very funny and always well-acted

16 Aug 2010

Blood is, no doubt, what fuels this comedy trio’s hyperactive sketch show as they sweat buckets throughout (not helped by the brightly-coloured jumpers), while the tears are those belonging to their laughing audience. So, in Blood, Sweat & Tears, some…

Joe Bor

An easy and relaxed way with the crowd

16 Aug 2010

Bor makes his Fringe debut with a show themed around embarrassment, but his collection of routines isn’t particularly harmonious and they vary greatly in quality, the weakest of them feeling like they’ve just been thrown into the mix. That said, Bor has…

Tom Williams

One wishes the humour was a bit sharper

16 Aug 2010

Williams got the inspiration for his multiple character-based comedy from watching court cases. Here, he’s been inspired by the tragic tale of a man who killed a teenage burglar, was tried for murder and found out a devastating secret about the dead…

Lee Kern opens with Filthy Raucous Soul Bitch

Promising debut from cheeky Londoner

12 Aug 2010

Inviting critics to the very first performance of his Fringe debut run, as opposed to giving himself time to ease in, could have gone either way for Lee Kern. On the one hand, he’s got a better chance of receiving a write-up, which becomes more…

Chris Corcoran

Corcoran makes his people sound rather lovely

11 Aug 2010

It’s not surprising that this young Welsh stand-up should have such a winning stage presence, given he was previously a kids entertainer on CBeebies. His second Fringe show (after a 2004 debut with Welsh Assembly) follows an illuminating tour of his…

Brendon Burns

Overly serious rants about killing paedophiles and getting religion

10 Aug 2010

Given that Burns yells from start to finish, why the loudmouth Aussie stand-up needs acoustic accompaniment is anyone’s guess. His guitarist mate’s presence also unbalances the show with an opening comic jam that forces Burns to rush the ending.

Adam Riches

Riches’ latest show is supremely daft

10 Aug 2010

Even by this crazy character comic’s standards, Riches’ latest show is supremely daft. A theme park inspired by Pierce Brosnan’s turn as a centaur in Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief is the lame excuse for a bolt through several silly…

David Strassman: Ventriloquism taken to a whole new level

Duality brilliantly wrong-foots audience and may blow minds

6 Aug 2010

American entertainer David Strassman continues to single-handedly revive and redefine the ancient art of ventriloquism for the 21st century with this hilarious mind-bending psychodrama which might have been written by Charlie Being John Malkovich…

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis

Sibling rock ‘n’ rollers with retro leanings

3 Aug 2010

‘I’m really looking forward to it, because we haven’t done Scotland yet,’ 17-year-old Kitty Durham says about playing Edinburgh. Durham fronts the youthful retro three-piece, Kitty, Daisy & Lewis, with her brother and sister. The north London trio have…

Lars Husum - My Friend Jesus Christ

24 Jun 2010

(Portobello Books) Before authoring this, his first novel, Danish writer Lars Husum worked at filmmaker Lars von Trier’s Copenhagen production company Zentropa as a script doctor. It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that My Friend Jesus Christ has…

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…

I Sell the Dead

The horror comedy comes to DVD

2 Oct 2009

First-time writer-director Glenn McQuaid does a pretty good job of invoking the spirit of the camp old Hammer chillers films with this low-budget comedy horror about a pair luckless bodysnatchers. Set in a mist-shrouded backwater of 19th century feckin…

Wilson Dixon

Wryly amusing and peppered with plain silly songs

24 Aug 2009

It's a pleasure to spend an hour in the company of this affable, laidback, slightly dopey country singer from Cripple Creek, Colorado (perhaps by way of the Antipodes). During it, Wilson recounts the story of how he took off to make his name in…

Adams & Rea

Music in their blood but only mildly amusing

24 Aug 2009

These girls have got music in their blood, capable as they are of switching effortlessly from pop to rock and rap via medieval ballad and Japanese folk song. But while their playing of guitar, ukulele and banjo impresses, it's not clear whether or not…

Justin Moorhouse

Brash comic’s storytelling mash-up

21 Aug 2009

Justin Moorhouse kicks off his show by taking issue with a review from last year’s Fringe that likened him to a cross between Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown and Coldplay. It’s hard to see the comparison between the drippy bleeding heart liberal rockers and…

Capturing the imagination: Terry Gilliam

Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam talks about The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus

20 Aug 2009

Terry Gilliam is without doubt a singularly gifted visionary and an irrepressibly maverick filmmaker. However, the 66-year-old American former Monty Python animator also appears to be cursed with dreadfully bad fortune. The debacle with the financiers…

Hardeep Singh Kohli

Laugh-lite Glaswegian gourmet

14 Aug 2009

During his enforced leave of absence from the BBC, the Scottish Sikh star of The One Show is indulging his fondness for cooking with this culinary-themed comedy show. The simple set-up has Kohli cooking a meal on stage, based on ingredients supplied on…

The Event

Brilliant deconstruction of stand-up

13 Aug 2009

Like so many brilliant ideas the thinking behind this superb show is simple: stand-up deconstructed. A comedian walks on stage to begin what his audience assumes will be a standard comedy routine. Expectations are immediately overturned, however, with a…

Mackenzie Taylor

Painfully funny trip through mental illness

11 Aug 2009

Taylor took a year off the Fringe in 2008 after he’d tried to kill himself. This year, the likeable hairy bear’s back to tell us all about it with this blow-by-blow account of the mental illness he’s lived with for 15 years and the almost fatal ménage à…

Alan Francis & Barnaby Power

Satisfying stings and filthy finales

10 Aug 2009

Two blokes delivering a series of sketches stitched together with a bit of banter might make for a fairly conventional act, but the delivery is pitch perfect and the timing spot on here, all of which makes this comedian-actor duo’s show well worth…

Parade

30 Jul 2009

Released in 1974, the final film by the great French silent comedian Jacques Tati is a typically playful, though also extremely eloquent ending to his quarter-century film career. On the face of it nothing more than a series of circus acts compered by…

Christine Jeffs interview

25 Jun 2009

Kiwi filmmaker Christine Jeffs (pictured centre right) wasn’t the obvious choice to direct the American indie comedy Sunshine Cleaning. Her previous two features, the New Zealand marital breakdown drama Rain and the British dead poet biopic Sylvia…

Gigantic

11 Jun 2009

ROMANCE/COMEDY Having done morose to such great comic effect as a mute Goth kid in Little Miss Sunshine and zealous to fine dramatic impact as the phoney preacher in There Will Be Blood, boyishly good looking American actor Paul Dano graduates from…

Dock Life - The Leith Festival

28 May 2009

So what’s The Leith Festival, then? It’s an annual community celebration that takes in comedy, dance, film, literature, music, storytelling theatre, visual art and children’s events – in other words everything. A small affair, is it? Hardly. Its…

The Fan

22 Jan 2009

COMEDY Disliked by its director and indifferently received both critically and commercially when first released in 1949, Otto Preminger’s 1949 adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s celebrated play Lady Windermere’s Fan is long overdue for reappraisal. It’s…

The Ruling Class

22 Jan 2009

COMEDY/MUSICAL Olivier Award-winning dramatist Peter Barnes’ adaptation of his own acclaimed play, directed for the screen in 1972 by Hungarian émigré Peter Medak (The Krays, Let Him Have It), was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes and secured…

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…

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

2 Oct 2008

COMEDY Toby Young’s semi-scandalous memoir about the period the gobby English journo spent carousing with the rich and famous, while working at Vanity Fair magazine in New York is given a mainstream movie makeover with this enjoyable enough romantic…

All the world’s a stage

15 Sep 2008

Merchant City Festival (25-28 Sep) www.merchantcityfestival.com Located in the heart of old Glasgow, this event locates a programme of film, theatre, comedy, visual arts, street theatre, live music, food and fashion within an area of real…

Vladimir McTavish

21 Aug 2008

In addition to generating plenty of laughs, the oddly monikered Glasgow-born comedian's new list-based show makes for a very serviceable and satirical potted history of Scotland. By nature of being a top 50 (Greatest Scots Ever!), McTavish's list is far…

About Benson & Hill

21 Aug 2008

This likeable double act play tag, so you get Geordie comic Luke Benson's audience-based improvisations and clever wordplay followed by his Leicestershire counterpart Martin Hill's observations about everyday life laced with surreal…

Jimeoin

Refining a lost art of the commonplace

14 Aug 2008

Less is definitely more with this Irish comic. Although he's playing to a packed house, Jimeoin eschews the customary mic-stand and bellowing delivery and instead wears a discreet ear-piece, talks softly, mumbles quite a bit and relies on facial…

Arnold Brown

14 Aug 2008

Quite why this veteran comic needs a warm-up act is anyone's guess. Irish stand-up Ian Macpherson has got a perfectly fine line of patter, but Brown is such a consummate and idiosyncratic comedian you want a full hour of him. Nevertheless, the impish…

AL Kennedy

14 Aug 2008

Those familiar with Kennedy's profound award-winning fiction will be surprised by her style of stand-up. Affable, enthusiastic and a little amateurish, Kennedy's routines revolve around commonplace subjects ranging from a visit to the dentist to pulling…

Nick Doody

Merging satire with daftness

7 Aug 2008

A technical hitch during the previous show delays the returning Fringe comedian's show by 15 minutes, but soon the relatively substantial crowd sits in the dark watching Nick Doody's entree, a stereo slideshow of global news horror stories intercut with…

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…

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…

Garth Jennings - Son of Rambow

27 Mar 2008

‘Would you like a slice of sponge cake with your cup of tea?’ Garth Jennings says amiably. ‘I made it this morning. Not sure if it’s any good, mind.’ A warm welcome aboard his floating studio, housed on a barge on a canal in north London, this may…

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…

Wristcutters: A Love Story

15 Nov 2007

There’s a thick-blooded vein of Slavic humour running through Croatian writer-director Goran Dukic’s absurdist purgatorial romantic comedy. Adapted from Israeli writer Etgar Keret’s short story, Kneller’s Happy Campers, Dukic’s feature debut boasts a…

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…

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…

Hatchet

20 Sep 2007

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 low-budget offering, ‘old…

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…

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…

Wedding Daze

21 May 2007

In an excruciatingly embarrassing opening sequence worthy of the notorious warm apple tart shag in American Pie, the star of both somewhat infantile romantic comedies, the charmingly gormless Jason Biggs, proposes marriage to his sweetheart dressed as…

Little Red Flowers

(12A) 87min

26 Mar 2007

DRAMA/COMEDY Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by the bestselling enfant terrible of Chinese literature Wang Shuo, Little Red Flowers is the story of a precocious four-year-old boy, Qiang (Dong Bowen), who rebels against the conformity in his…

Sleeping Dogs

(18) 89min

13 Mar 2007

A sexual indiscretion - and that’s putting it mildly - kicks of this tasteless but sweet natured comedy about a girl who’s hiding a traumatising secret (again, mildly put) from her fiancé. But although this consistently amusing and frequently hilarious…

Running with Scissors

29 Jan 2007

Nip/Tuck writer/executive producer Ryan Murphy does a very fine job of cutting/pasting onto the big screen the horrific and hilarious teenage memoir of journalist Augusten Burroughs. Abandoned first by his alcoholic father Norman (Alec Baldwin) and then…

Chris Ware - comic review

Chris Ware

29 Jan 2007

WARPED HUMOUR The 17th volume of Chris Ware’s now self-published irregular comic continues the sad tale of Rusty Brown, a pre-pubescent dork who lives in a snowbound small town in America’s mid-west, where he stubbornly clings to his best friend, a…

Sir Kenry at Rawlinson End - DVD review

Sir Kenry at Rawlinson End

27 Nov 2006

SPOOF/COMEDY Confoundedly eccentric, inordinately shambolic and downright hilarious, this one-of-a-kind British cinema oddity plays like a collaboration between Luis Buñuel and the Monty Python team. It’s actually the fever dream of Vivian Stanshall…

Green Man, The - DVD review

The Green Man

14 Nov 2006

COMEDY Aside from being quite possibly the great comic actor Alistair Sim’s finest hour, The Green Man is also one of the very best post-war British comedies. Directed by camera operator Robert Day, with the uncredited assistance of old pro Basil…

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

The devil plays guitar

13 Nov 2006

Tearing modesty a new asshole, Tenacious D describe themselves as ‘the world’s greatest rock band’. The D’s two members, Jack Black (vocals and rhythm guitar) and Kyle Gass (lead guitar and backing vocals), name check among their inspirations Kiss, Dio…

Tim Moore

Nul Points (Jonathan Cape)

11 Nov 2006

COMIC TRAVELOGUE Tim Moore usurped Bill Bryson’s humorous travel writing crown by putting himself through dreadful physical hardship ?" cycling the route of the Tour de France, dragging a braying donkey along the pilgrim trail to Santiago de…