Edinburgh Festivals, Brian Donaldson

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…

Richard Sandling

Format war rant full of comedic gems

22 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…

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…

Gordon Burn

Upsetting the traditionalists with novelised news

21 Aug 2008

‘I hate plots. Soon as I know that a film or a book or TV show has a plot, my brain can’t cope with it. If I’m watching a film and I don’t know or have forgotten what the storyline is and I’m supposed to work out who this or that person is, I just fall…

If.comedy shortlist long on quality

Little to argue with over judges award selection

21 Aug 2008

The rant was already prepared. How could they possibly let A on there when B has put together a far more impressive hour? C was absolutely hilarious: why have they let D & E in when they were funnier three years ago? And yet the good people sitting…

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…

Top 5 - Tories

21 Aug 2008

Rick Wakeman He might be a cast member of the Grumpy Old Men but simply mention the word ‘conservative’ and the Yes man lights up. He even performed a gig in 2004 to raise funds for the party. Rock’n’roll eh? 22 Aug, 6.30pm, £9 (£7) . Ffion Hague…

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…

Kids Events

14 Aug 2008

When Miranda Richardson so memorably played the child-like Queen Elizabeth I in Blackadder, a career in entertaining kids seemed to be in the offing. With Horrid Henry (16 Aug) she appears to have finally grasped that opportunity by voicing the little…

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…