Comedy and Yasmin Sulaiman

The sex-themed shows that turn Edinburgh into sin city during August

Pole dancers, prostitutes and rampant bedhoppers at the 2010 Fringe

16 Jul 2010

'Coming back from seeing the second Sex and the City film,’ says live artist Bryony Kimmings, ‘I was absolutely disgusted.’ And she’s not the only one groaning about the latest instalment of this once groundbreaking explicit comedy about the sexual…

Over the Grump: Jenny Eclair

25 Feb 2010

Backed by a new generation of fans Jenny Eclair is arriving into the best years of her career. The Grumpy Old Women star tells Yasmin Sulaiman why she’s now returning to stand up.

G3: The Ginge, the Geordie and the Geek

Brave and occasionally sinister

24 Aug 2009

The damp, scruffy interior of The Caves seems like the ideal location for this brave and occasionally sinister sketch show. As accomplished actors, the members of G3, are able to effortlessly embody the many characters they create, ranging from a…

4 Poofs and a Piano

A seemingly inexhaustible supply of sexual puns

24 Aug 2009

The four poofs of Jonathan Ross's house band are affable enough but their hour of musical comedy is suffocated by a seemingly inexhaustible supply of sexual puns. A few energetic dance routines - after which these pre-Brüno stereotypes nearly collapse…

Jason John Whitehead

This rambling show needs a little more coherence

24 Aug 2009

JJW is having a crisis: now in his 30s, his body clock is ticking but he has no real affection for kids, and a string of jokes about beating other people's children compose the core of this routine. His quirky delivery steers him past slower moments but…

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…

Idiots of Ants

Glitches mar a slick show from comedy savants

20 Aug 2009

Idiots of Ants aren’t having the best of nights: their projector is on the blink and their performance feels rushed. Killer lines are mumbled through and some of their sketches fall flat with this audience who are rightly expecting something a little…

The Gadabouts

Their general affability is wasted on this largely disappointing show

18 Aug 2009

A man down on last year’s praised line-up, The Gadabouts’ Matt and Joe are clearly talented performers but their general affability is wasted on this largely disappointing show. There are a handful of highlights hidden in the duo’s haphazard hour of…

Foil Arms and Hog

Deliriously funny and at times unexpectedly dark

18 Aug 2009

The sketch form is taken back to its pleasingly gimmick-free basics here by Irish trio Foil Arms and Hog. While some of their routines are based on familiar formats, their best work is deliriously funny and at times unexpectedly dark. If their future…

Simon Munnery

A comfortingly familiar Fringe fixture

18 Aug 2009

With his erudite allusions and penchant for the silly, Munnery’s AGM has become a comfortingly familiar Fringe fixture. This year, the comedian switches from family stories to a supermarket-themed mini opera, before delving into the bucket of…

Felicity Ward

Tales of poor Aussie upbringing lack bite

16 Aug 2009

There’s no denying that Australian comedian Felicity Ward has stage presence. There’s something about her that’s instantly likeable, from the butter-wouldn’t-melt way she breathes numerous expletives to the sweetness with which she interacts with the…

Luke Wright

His concerns may be petty but the poetry is not

16 Aug 2009

You’ve got to hand it to Luke Wright. Since his first solo Fringe show in 2006, he’s come back to Edinburgh every year with a new collection of withering poems, each of which dissects the highs and lows of his chosen profession with equal menace and…

Pippa Evans

Wicked musical comedy in every conceivable way

16 Aug 2009

The ease with which Pippa Evans slips between her psychotic characters in this cabaret-style show is an instant reminder of why she was shortlisted for an if.comedy Best Newcomer award last year. However, there is an element of patchiness about her…

Maggie Service

12 Aug 2009

Service’s background as a trained actor gives her valuable comic versatility in this one-woman sketch show. But while her characters – ranging from an overly-chatty 24-hour medical emergency helpline assistant to an Australian drama teacher whose mantra…

Pappy's Fun Club

Sketch favourites achieve cohesion through chaos

11 Aug 2009

Sketch comedy at the Fringe is often accused of a lack of fluidity, in the absence of an over-arching narrative thread to keep its audience engaged. Former if.comedy award nominees Pappy’s Fun Club may have been guilty of this in the past, but somehow…

Hugh Hughes

Storytelling with humour and charm

11 Aug 2009

Hugh Hughes in … 360 is every bit as touching, though perhaps less polished, than the Welsh performance artist’s previous offerings, the Fringe First-winning Floating and Story of a Rabbit. Without props or music, Hughes relies simply on his charm and…

Newsrevue

Easy targets are tackled with reliable aplomb

11 Aug 2009

Pregnant teens, a bumbling Gordon Brown and child-hungry Madonna make too easy targets for the talented performers in Newsrevue, many of whose topical, musical sketches aren’t developed to their full potential. But select moments – like David Cameron’s…

Andrea Donovan: Regret Me Not

Meaningful character comedy

11 Aug 2009

The lingering poignancy of Regret Me Not, in which Donovan portrays a range of fictional women, indicates a bright future for this comic. There are some duds, including a Geordie drug addict turned life coach, but her Aussie school swimming instructor…

Sound and Fury: Sherlock Holmes and the Saline Solution

American comedy trio take on Victorian London

10 Aug 2009

With the foreboding spectre of a Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes film being released later this year, American comedy trio Sound and Fury’s new show (Sherlock Holmes and the Saline Solution) is a welcome DIY send-up of literature’s most famous…

Signspotting Project

Doug Lansky's comedy exhibition of accidental roadside humour is a sign of the times

28 Jul 2009

Doug Lansky might be one of the world’s most respected travel writers, but he is better known as the orchestrator of The Signspotting Project, a longstanding mission to collect images of the world’s funniest road signs. This passionate quest for…

Patrick Monahan

Family-friendly performer exploring our differences

24 Jul 2009

‘My mum’s Iranian, my dad’s Irish and I’m the only one in my house with a northern accent,’ says Teessider Patrick Monahan, explaining how he’s spent his whole life trying to ‘fit in’. Even now, preparing for his eighth year at the Edinburgh Fringe…

Figures of fun

What the Edinburgh Festival means in numbers

13 Jul 2009

1,535,519 tickets, 34,265 performances and nine rubber ducks. All that and more make up a busy August.

Cooking with Elvis

9 Jul 2009

Lee Hall might be best known for his Oscar-nominated screenplay for Billy Elliot, but long before Jamie Bell’s dancing feet captured the public imagination, Hall scored a hit with the acclaimed comedy Cooking with Elvis. First performed in Newcastle’s…