Issue 637

Wolfboy

Unintentionally funny, with unmemorable songs

21 Aug 2009

This musical adaptation of Brad Fraser’s play feels like someone’s titillating soft-core fantasy, in which two troubled boyband-pretty teens with hard bodies and perky nipples come very close to kissing but can only cope with bashfully simulating…

Around the World in 80 Days

Steve Coogan in the recent interpretation of the classic adventure

21 Aug 2009

The little ones will be back at school soon, but if the schizophrenic weather is doing your head in then it may be time for Saturday morning trip to the cinema. This chaotic and silly adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel starring Steve Coogan and Jackie…

Ritter, Dene, Voss

Torment amongst siblings

21 Aug 2009

Skilful acting and inventive staging underpin this menacing yet comic tale, in which two sisters bring their brother home from a mental institution and are confronted by their fraught relationships over the dinner table. Taking Austrian writer Thomas…

The Dandelion’s Story

The circle of life

21 Aug 2009

A dog drops an enormous poo. The lonely shite is then shunned by birds, chickens and farmers until a delicate friendship is formed between her and a clod of earth, and she turns into a dandelion. This Korean variation on The Ugly Duckling with physical…

Words of Honour

Lifting the lid on the Italian mafia

21 Aug 2009

This exposé of the inner workings of the Sicilian mafia is a frustrating failure. Based on Attilio Bolzoni’s Parole D’Honore, it uses the testimony of an investigative journalist and a handful of criminals to lift the lid on life inside the Cosa Nostra.

A Fistful of Snow

The strange but amusing tale of an estranged writer

21 Aug 2009

Danny Alder plays Chester James, a writer who has inexplicably ended up in Svalbard guarding the world seed bank, paralysed by the success of his first novel, and with only an inflatable moose, a pompous budgie and a hungry polar bear for company. It’s…

The Rap Guide to Evolution

Combining Chuck D and Charles Darwin

21 Aug 2009

Part gig, part stand up, part lecture, Baba Brinkman, the man who brought you The Rap Canterbury Tales, tackles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Instantly accessible, destroying creationism through the music of The Notorious BIG, Dead Prez, Mobb Deep and…

No Parole: Family is a Life Sentence

A true story of rocky relationships and career criminal mums

21 Aug 2009

One man show from Carlo D’Amore concerning his life and rocky relationship with his career criminal mother and her one woman crime wave from Peru to America. This true story is touching, funny, poignant, outrageous and very personal but is ultimately…

Nightfall

Experimental mime

21 Aug 2009

Hurtwood Theatre Company’s experimental work is a charming meditation on different forms of love. At first relying solely on mime, the impreciseness of some of the actors’ movements means a few sequences are hard to follow. But as the form progresses…

I Don’t Live Here Anymore

Poignant rather than heavy

21 Aug 2009

Emma’s dying, David’s wondering how to move on. We see scenes from the beginning and end of the relationship. The audience might feel weighed down were it not for interruptions from two jocular narrators, who extrapolate subtexts and keep things…

George in the Dragon’s Den

Bringing the Saint into the 21st century

21 Aug 2009

The tale of St George is brought into the 21st century as the eponymous hero becomes an illegal Polish worker and the dragon a greedy banker. Performed entirely in verse, the spoken word dominates and confuses, while attempts at creating a…

Parents’ Evening

Interactivity brings the fear of parents' evening to life

21 Aug 2009

This interactive show works best in its first five minutes. Brief one-on-one encounters with the staff of Aultyme High easily recreate the dread of parents’ evening. Group activities follow, and while fun, these never achieve the same kind of genuine…

Been So Long

Great tunes, pounding voices and beguiling dialogue

19 Aug 2009

The Scottish premiere of Che Walker and Arthur Darvill’s straight play-turned musical brings a bittersweet reflection upon love and our fear of it, tempered by a sardonic streetwise wit, which, pleasingly, isn’t nearly as tough as it makes out. The…

Broken Records

A dry atmosphere and a workmanlike performance

19 Aug 2009

Promoted to the Queen's Hall after last year's Edge festival performance at the Liquid, and following a year of showing the world just how beautiful music can be, you'd think this old cacophonous church would be the ideal place to show off the…

Where Eagles Dare/The Bridge of Remagen

19 Aug 2009

Fans of great war movies shouldn’t miss this great Sunday double bill which has been programmed to coincide with the release of Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (see review). Brian G Hutton’s familiar but still brilliant 1968 men-on-a-mission epic…

The Grind Show

Carnival slapstick and profound questioning from the TBA Collaborative

19 Aug 2009

A mix of slick physical theatre and naturalistic dialogue, The Grind Show follows wide-eyed ‘Boy’ through a surreal circus. Underworld characters, including the double-bodied Miss Von Ambourg (whose act involves splitting apart to throw daggers at her…

Susurrus

A triumphant reworking of David Leddy’s boundary-pushing piece

19 Aug 2009

A triumphant reworking of David Leddy’s boundary-pushing piece of promenade audio-theatre. While at first it feels odd setting off around the Botanics, map in hand, Leddy’s dark tale of an opera singer’s family, loosely based on A Midsummer Night’s…

Jack Mink

A mesmerising spectacle

19 Aug 2009

Blending improvisation with mime, humour with tragedy, this show is entirely what you make of it. Mink in Victorian-style garb and clown make-up welcomes you to his space and presents a series of hypothetical situations that on this occasion included…

Phil and Phill

Toe-curling awkwardness

19 Aug 2009

Phil and Phill are best mates. So much so that they’re planning a double wedding: if they can find some brides. The show’s intention is one of studied discomfort as the pair occupy a far too close relationship for onlookers to witness, but the result is…

Almost Like a Virgin

Strikes an impressive pose

19 Aug 2009

The problem with pretending to be someone else is that there’s always a chance the audience will want more of them and less of you. This ode to the Queen of Pop is a case in point. Madge impersonator Evelyne Brink strikes an impressive pose as she belts…

Killing Me Softly

Rhyming couplets that feel remarkably natural

19 Aug 2009

In this one-man verse play, we are guests at a ‘welcome-home party’ for Sylvia, complete with 80s pop and cheap decorations. Slowly - in rhyming couplets that feel remarkably natural - we learn why we're invited. Our host is chatty, evasive, and…

The Moonfish Rhumba

A jarring clash between the potential and the misfiring, crude reality

19 Aug 2009

Billed as a ‘unique blend of musical mayhem and off-the-wall comedy’, this double act is, at least, visually unique as Dan Lees and Guy Combes sport the looks of a 1930s detective and a Hispanic Freddie Mercury respectively. Their material is a…

Michael Fabbri

Destined for a bigger stage

19 Aug 2009

The Brighton funnyman brings a strong, very smoothly delivered set, with tales about being employed in a job centre, and snippets of internet forum abuse making for smart comedy fodder. A section with melodramatically soppy background music is a…

Super Situation

An engaging physical performance

19 Aug 2009

Imagine a super heroine with a banal suburban life who, between foiling an evil genius repeatedly attempting to destroy the earth, likes nothing more than to curl up in front of the telly with a pizza, and you’ve seen the whole joke of this one-woman…

Porn: the Musical

Misses the money shot

19 Aug 2009

Conceived in Malta, this bawdy sing-along tells the story of a native nerd who trades his small island for the Big Apple and finds happiness making skin flicks in the US. The parody of stage musicals is energetically performed, but it’s too raucous for…

Helen Arney

Charming, witty and warm with great one-liners

19 Aug 2009

81/2 Songs About Love (And Other Myths) is a hilarious parade of stalking, dysfunctional relationships, Jean-Paul Sartre, washed-up accordions, over-eager dates, and death by disastrous marriage proposal, set to piano, ukulele and a pimped glockenspiel.

The Muffia

Uncomfortable, unplanned and best avoided

19 Aug 2009

Tight Women is a baffling little number, telling the tale of two market traders fantasising about their own telly show. However, the action is overshadowed by the awkward silence of an audience desperately trying to like and understand the two stars…

Fahrenheit 451

Performances make up for in gusto what they can lack in finesse

19 Aug 2009

The Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’ opens this cautionary tale set in a future envisaged by Ray Bradbury, where books are burned for fear of independent thought. The track sets the tone for a production in which performances make up for in gusto what they can…

Playing with the Past

19 Aug 2009

This fantastic programme of old movies and new music returns after making an acclaimed debut at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. Teaming short film works made in the 1930s and 40s from the Scottish Screen Archive including John…

Festival of Spirituality and Peace

19 Aug 2009

The quality of human relationships and their ability to engender peace in our hearts is the loose theme of this year’s laudable festival. Its film strand kicks off with a digitally restored print of Derek Jarman’s inspired adaptation of Benjamin…

Unsupervised Detention

Tight sketch comedy by gifted young players

19 Aug 2009

Tight sketch comedy by gifted young players and, though some scenes suffer from a too-actorly approach, there are more hits than misses and evidence of a genuine facility with the surreal. The introductory premise of bored schoolkids in detention…

Serate Bastarde

Subversive, shocking, clever and utterly nuts comedy

19 Aug 2009

Carmen, Renata and Silvia are intellectual, Italian lefties, and they want to make you think about current affairs, through spoof pop videos, bared boobs and free samples of Berlusconi’s sperm. With a Kabul-set Sex and the City remake, a bikini dance…

TeakShow

More absurd than funny

19 Aug 2009

Shrieking, bulging eyes, hummus throwing, pelvic thrusts, lounging on the mantelpiece, and twists on familiar scenes give this show a surreal air. The exaggeration is overdone, though, to the point that some sketches are more absurd than funny, losing…

Patch Hyde & Adam Tempest

A sweet way to spend an hour

19 Aug 2009

The Fudge Kitchen certainly makes for a kooky venue. With scrummy smells, free fudge and very limited audience squeezed in, this feels like an exciting Fringe experience. The comedy, courtesy of charming daytime fudge-makers Hyde and Tempest, remains at…

The Funeralogues

Gently comic with genuine poignancy

19 Aug 2009

Set in a churchy C space, this piece by US actress and playwright Stacy Mayer is a mild-mannered wander through the mind of an obsessive. ‘Stacy’ is captivated by all aspects of the funeral business and will do anything to gatecrash a wake. Gently comic…

Susan Harrison

The writing and chosen subjects let her down badly

19 Aug 2009

There’s clear talent abounding in this pint-sized comic actor, but the writing and chosen subjects of Five Characters in Search of Susan let her down badly. She adds very little to well-worn tropes of the posh ‘street’ kid and reality TV wannabe, while…

Stephen Carlin

A fierce invention at play

19 Aug 2009

While his show title insists that he’s blowing the lid off the whole filthy business, the London-based Scottish comic’s ambitions are more low-key. There is certainly a fierce invention at play with his often surreal material about whisky, shatterproof…

Jollie

Story-based songs on various countries

19 Aug 2009

What do you get if you cross two men called John and Ollie? Why, ‘Jollie’ of course! And what do you get if you base an entire hour on their invitation to perform at ‘an important European festival’? Story-based songs on various countries, all delivered…

I’ll Always Think of You that Way

Fresh, zany and surprising

19 Aug 2009

Rehab, depression, attempted suicide, departed husbands and death aren’t immediately comic material, but the adventures of silver-spoon idiot Savannah, and Alison, her fat, steadfast, depressed friend are very funny. It could do without the explanations…

Peter Duncan’s Dark and Dangerous

Safe, dated, yet surprisingly humble

19 Aug 2009

Following an encounter with the keepers of heaven and hell, early 80s Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan has one hour to justify his career and deliver himself from purgatory. Tied together by audience participation, tomfoolery with a video screen, and…

Sam Simmons

Lacking in spontaneity but his methods are inventive

19 Aug 2009

For his Fringe debut, the Australian puts his all into a song-and-goof show about the things you find down the back of the sofa. His absurdist observations may be lacking in spontaneity but his methods are inventive and being from the ‘if in doubt…

The List Operators

Enthusiastic and frantic hosts rip through their material

19 Aug 2009

In this 100 Greatest age, it was inevitable that a Fringe show would be concerned exclusively with the making of lists. This Aussie pair (one naively boyish, one mildly sleazy), are enthusiastic and frantic hosts and they rip through their material…

Don Quixote – Theatre of the Blind

Audio-aural experience works pretty well

19 Aug 2009

Given the constraints involved in putting on a Fringe show, blindfolding the audience and performing to their other senses seems an eminently sensible idea. How else would you stage Cervantes’ classic on a budget? Here the audio-aural experience works…

Mike Bubbins

Lacks punch but a natural charm just about sees him through

19 Aug 2009

Stocky Welshman Bubbins is the spit of The King of Queens’ Kevin James and, unfortunately, his Fringe debut is about as adventurous as the tepid US sitcom. The former PE teacher’s tales of daytime TV, smalltown life and material strife are often…

Oh, My Green Soap Box

Whimsical yet heartfelt

19 Aug 2009

Lucy Foster aims to illuminate why we haven’t yet pulled our collective finger out and saved the planet. We get sidetracked by the trials of everyday living and loving just as her proposed game-changing environmental campaign gets sidetracked by…

Plagiarismo

Pootles along without anything much happening

19 Aug 2009

An hour in Richard DeDomenici’s affable company is always entertaining, but this short lecture on artistic plagiarism is among the weakest of his works. He gets easy laughs from clips pointing out various pop music thefts, but the show pootles along…

Boy in Darkness

A lot of ambition that hasn’t found the right vehicle

19 Aug 2009

Mervyn Peake’s novella set in the same world as Gormenghast is rich with possibility, so when Curious Directive offers to stage it with projection, puppetry, audience interaction and an exploding armchair, things look promising. Bafflingly, few of these…

Harbingers

Unable to rein their natural exuberance into anything remotely amusing

19 Aug 2009

This trio are so far out of their boxes that they are clearly unable to rein their natural exuberance into anything remotely amusing. But 50 minutes in their company for *Enough Rope is not overly painful given the effort they have taken to become just…

Mark Walker

Immensely likeable and dynamic

19 Aug 2009

An hour in Walker's company and you'll know not only his star sign, but his hopes, dreams and curriculum vitae (rock star, impersonator and pebble-dasher). Immensely likeable and dynamic, Walker shows potential in comic avenues such as impersonation and…

Grandees

The mugging and gurning from the cast becomes migraine-inducing

19 Aug 2009

From the gruesomely unfunny opening narration to the intensely overacted pap that comes later, The Grandee Way is not a route to be recommended. The story of an 80s nightclub which may be the target of a bombing campaign (immediately hilarious), the…

The Constant Gardener

19 Aug 2009

This month’s screening in association with The British Science Association is Fernando Meirelles’ thoughtful adaptation of John Le Carre’s thriller about the murky practices of multinational pharmaceutical companies in the third world. Medical…

And All the Children Cried

Provocative stuff

19 Aug 2009

This hard-hitting and heartfelt drama deals with what society considers the most transgressive act of all: the sexual abuse of children by women. Set in a women’s prison, two of the inmates confess their crimes and tell their sorry stories to one…

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Steve Cramer's Festival blog

18 Aug 2009

There’s a paradox to being a reviewer. On the one hand, one is constantly badgered by theatre companies to see their shows, and on the other, when you arrive at their venues, they won’t let you in. Colonel Blood had easier access to the crown jewels…

Overcoming injuries sustained in pursuit of the spirit of the Fringe

18 Aug 2009

Waking up on the floor of my own room (the bed seemingly too much of a climb) to the all too recognisable noises of a rain-sodden Edinburgh morning, with dull memories of stand-up, biscuits and the Udderbelly Pasture trudging through my brain was not…

The Juan Maclean

A reminder of just how exhilarating live music can be

18 Aug 2009

This was always going to be good one. ‘Jesus, this place is small’ says production lynchpin John Maclean confronted by a wall of 100 bodies in a packed-out Sneaky’s. With four people, a drumkit and half a dozen synths crammed onto a tiny stage, and…

Jonny Sweet

A hilarious PowerPoint portrayal of a dead brother

18 Aug 2009

You could say that Jonny Sweet is probably quite a lucky geezer. Born with a face (agile) and voice (rich) that could only have led him onto one possible career path, he is utilising those assets to maximum effect in this, his debut solo Fringe show.

Zeitgeist

Breathtaking Butoh bento box

18 Aug 2009

This is the first time Australian company, Zen Zen Zo has come to the Fringe, but they’re no blushing debutants. Zeitgeist is a retrospective of their shorter works inspired by the untamed Japanese art form of Butoh. But it’s also a pulse check, a look…

Rough Cut Nation

Graffiti warriors v neo-Gothic architecture

18 Aug 2009

‘No one notices your pointless actions’, read the letters cut out of the floor. That’s not entirely true nowadays. Graffiti culture has entered the mainstream art world. Largely due to Banksy, art that was once firmly associated with lawless…

Kevin Bridges

Scotland’s rising star strikes on his Fringe debut

18 Aug 2009

Clydebank’s finest (unless you’re a fan of Duncan Bannatyne or Wet Wet Wet) makes his Fringe debut here with An Hour to Sing for Your Soul. Extra dates were ratcheted onto his schedule after his appearance on that Michael McIntyre vehicle led to a flood…

Jamie Kilstein

US political comic veers away from obvious targets

18 Aug 2009

Word has it that Jamie Kilstein got a rough time of things after one of his Fringe shows last year from some army types unhappy at his anti-war material. The only person who might be waiting outside this show to have a word might be Jamie Kilstein’s…

Lighter Than Air

Balloon antics provoke belly laughs

18 Aug 2009

It’s amazing the fun that can be generated from a few simple props. When clown Danny Schlesinger plods on stage wearing a too-tight suit and a deadpan expression, his arms weighed down with three enormous yellow balloons, you wonder whether he will be…

Edward Aczel

The dry meanderings of a new kind of comic

18 Aug 2009

The anti-comedy of Edward Aczel has certainly garnered itself a strong following. And while there is plenty hearty laughter at the goings-on within his show which, it promises, Explains All the World’s Problems … And Then Solves Them, the bulk of it is…

David O'Doherty

Last year’s if.comedy winner consolidates

18 Aug 2009

One of David O’Doherty’s fellow Irish comics recently mused that it would be quite a sight to see the Dubliner shocking his fans by performing a full-on political show. This is clearly not the moment for such wild reinvention, for DO’D has a firm…

Rhod Gilbert

A breakneck litany of hilarious disasters

18 Aug 2009

Rhod Gilbert’s star is most definitely in the ascendancy. Over the last year, he has been nominated for the if.comedy award, and performed on Live at the Apollo and the Royal Variety show. He is also (which he seems most proud of) the face of the Welsh…

Twine

Moving tale of twine-made being brewed in a teapot

18 Aug 2009

Riddles Court off the Royal Mile makes a suitably atmospheric location for the first Fringe show from Edinburgh-based children’s theatre company, Tortoise in a Nutshell. Their tale – in which a group of tea and cupcake-loving storytellers inadvertently…

Holly Burn

A memorably awkward experience

18 Aug 2009

Oh, where to begin? At Home With Holly certainly has a quirkily curious appeal, staged in a lovely New Town flat where the audience gets to watch Holly Burn ‘live her life’. So far, so intriguing. But even before stepping over the threshold, it’s clear…

Man-made: 1,2,3

Masculinity in the spotlight

18 Aug 2009

On The Verge, a Midlands-based theatre co-operative, are performing three shows over three weeks, all sharing the title Man-made, and looking at purpose and values in the modern world. Man-made: 2 stars dance company, fromthegreyhouse and takes on the…

The Brothers Lionheart

Heavy tale of death and doom

18 Aug 2009

Jonathan and his little brother, Rusky set off an adventure that changes their lives forever. It’s a tale of dragons and monsters, and the mighty Tengil who has the villagers of Nangilaya living in fear. The boys must man-up and fight back against…

Baxterbear's Tales: Storytelling for all

Globe-trotting bear with a tale to tell

18 Aug 2009

With so many Fringe shows taking place in small, dark quarters, it’s refreshing (and not a little exciting) to attend one in the rather more grand surroundings of the Caledonian Hotel. Having been greeted by a giant-sized Baxterbear in the foyer, we’re…

Zoe Lyons

Sharp act with a cuddly side

18 Aug 2009

Despite the misleadingly butch show title of Miss Machismo, Zoe Lyons thankfully goes easy on the cocky swagger in this show about women with an exaggeratedly massive masculine side. Instead, ‘the 81st most influential gay woman in Britain’ (so says The…

Still Breathing

Impressive but joyless contemporary dance

18 Aug 2009

There’s plenty to admire in this new show by all-male company 2FaCeD DaNcE, not least the virtuosity of UK breakdancing champion, Robby Graham. Plus some incredibly tight ensemble routines, which fuse street dance with contemporary to explore the…

Jack Whitehall

A pedestrian set delivered with presence

18 Aug 2009

Given the many competition finals he reached early on in his career and his rapid rise to TV work, the 21-year-old Whitehall’s debut solo show at the Fringe was always going to be weighted with expectation. Watching him perform, it’s easy to see why…

Wind in the Willows

Beastly adaptation uses its loaf

18 Aug 2009

You never quite know what you’re going to get from a student production at the Fringe, but this group of actors (and I use the word in the truest sense) from Cambridge University is a cut above the rest. Each character is clearly defined – the…

A Betrayal of Penguins

Penguin-based humour has never seemed such fun

18 Aug 2009

If you’ve been searching for the next big thing of Irish comedy, then this pair of social misfits might well do the trick. John Gallagher (‘renegade historian’) and Matthew Smyth (‘economist with nothing to lose’), take us on a breakneck adventure…

Iain Banks - Transition

18 Aug 2009

Iain Banks’ words have a habit of getting inside your head with certain phrases, ideas and characters left tunnelling their way into the consciousness long after you’ve put his books down. Latest offering Transition is no different. While his writing…

Christopher Brookmyre - Pandaemonium

18 Aug 2009

It had to happen sometime. Over the course of 12 books, Christopher Brookmyre has maintained his ability to engage, amuse, appal (in a good way) and keep us guessing to the last line. But, unless great swathes of expositional prose about the laws of…

Books - 5 crime paperbacks

18 Aug 2009

Susan Arnout Smith - Out at Night The follow-up to the author’s The Timer Game debut, this presents a complex tale of farming wars with the genetic versus organic crops brigades going to battle. Perennial. Dan Waddell - Blood Atonement A second…

Evie Wyld - After the Fire, A Still Small Voice

18 Aug 2009

(Jonathan Cape) After the Fire, A Still Small Voice suffers from the same problem as its title; too long and too obscure. Evie Wyld, a graduate from a creative writing Masters in London, sets her début novel in the wide open spaces of her native…

Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

18 Aug 2009

ALAN MOORE & VARIOUS (DC/Titan) In 1985 the Superman titles were reset at issue one, meaning there would a final issue of Superman and Action Comics in the old numbering system (this kind of intricate continuity is a recurring facet of the…

Khaki Shorts

18 Aug 2009

We return to the grimy world of Khaki Shorts as their rebirth continues for another dose of Scottish underground comics action. This second issue of their ‘reboot’ is as scatological in its humour, style and subject matter as last issue in its…

5 Questions - Kenny Young and the Eggplants

Fresh from the Big Apple, Kenny Young and the Eggplants wax lyrical about punk, flyerers and chips a

18 Aug 2009

5 words you’d use to describe your show Really fun weird pop songs. 4 shows you’re looking forward to during August The Eggplants have been in a recording studio in New York City all Summer, and I have not seen the Fringe Programme yet! But…

Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?

18 Aug 2009

NEIL GAIMAN & VARIOUS (DC/Titan) In 2009 and after Grant Morrison’s apocalyptic run on Batman, two monthly titles, Detective Comics and Batman, have been put on hiatus. So who better than Neil Gaiman to write the final two-part story? Again looking…

Vladimir McTavish - Top 50 Greatest Scots Ever, Part Two

Familiar stereotype-based observations

18 Aug 2009

Vladimir returns with the follow up to 2008's Part One, a sideways look at great Scots old and new. Dishing out some familiar stereotype-based observations of the good and the not-so-good of modern day Scotland, McTavish manages to skit in praise of one…

Alex Maple

The exit doors become an ever appealing prospect

18 Aug 2009

It’s hard to invest hope in a stand-up when he seems to have very little faith in himself. Maple’s skit of having an Irish jig played each time he tells a terrible joke not only gets wearing very quickly, but tells its own rather miserable story. There…

Rachel Rose Reid: And They Lived

Charismatic and engaging

18 Aug 2009

Once upon a time – that is at 10.45pm in a modest attic room at The Pleasance … animated storyteller Rachel Rose Reid delights her grown up audience with traditional tales from around the globe. Charismatic and engaging she will have you stamping…

Comedy Bitch

Don’t lift the bar high enough

18 Aug 2009

The innocent strangers lost at night venturing into the company of a possibly psychotic local may not be the worst beginning to a Fringe sketch show in living memory, but it can’t be far off. Predictable later skits of an offensive wedding speech…

Wrecked (A Guardian Reader’s Quest to Save Africa)

Memories and musings at sea

18 Aug 2009

Shipwrecked between continents, a lone woman bobs along in her suitcase considering her childhood abroad and the liberal views she inherited from her mother. This energetic one-woman play would work better as a series of sketches: the characters are…

Mike Wozniak

Strained face-pulling and intentionally bad impersonations

18 Aug 2009

Having provided one of the sleeper hits of last year’s Fringe, the Portsmouth Pole upsettingly fails to live up to that promise. Given that erudite subtlety was his watchword in 2008, he makes the odd mistake of going mic-less with the audience losing…

Max and Iván

Great energy and slick audiovisuals

18 Aug 2009

Like a YouTube-era update of Charlie Brooker’s spoof listings site TVGoHome, this two-man sketch show satirises and subverts telly staples. With great energy and slick audiovisuals, the camera-friendly performers spend exactly the right amount of time…

Andrew Watts

Without any decent jokes

18 Aug 2009

Taking a rough show chronology from The Kinks’ 1968 single ‘David Watts’, posh butterball and depressed ex-lawyer Andrew Watts takes us on a journey through his arcane obsessions and observations. With his talk of macro-economics and pharmaceutical…

Actions Speak Louder than Birds

Spends too much time apologising for his limitations

18 Aug 2009

Last August ‘motivational speaker’ Marc Hogan bet a colleague £1 that he could perform a successful show at this year’s Fringe. A PowerPoint presentation takes us through his agenda and this slavish adherence to his day job is his undoing. Rather than…

Geraldine Quinn

Cleverly bitter material

18 Aug 2009

Suffering from the unholy trinity of being ginger, old and childless, Quinn believes she’s being hunted down as a witch. Singing Beyoncé-style pop ditties and 50s jukebox and jazz numbers, the angst-ridden Aussie nutjob retaliates with quirky material…

Rosie Wilby

Wry and naughty

18 Aug 2009

Like a cool, knowing family friend or easy-on-the-eye Claire Rayner, the affable Wilby leads this homely class in love, sex and relationships. Wry and naughty, Wilby’s wont is rapport over bluster, as she kindly takes the audience into her bosom…

Marcel Lucont

Devilishly handsome and devastatingly disdainful

18 Aug 2009

Devilishly handsome and devastatingly disdainful, Lucont is the exquisitely crafted nom de plume of Buckinghamshire-born Alexis Dubus. Lucont has written many self-acclaimed books and has been awarded several self-awarded awards. Few comedians carry off…

Gerry Howell

Just being weird for the sake of it

18 Aug 2009

A convoluted, surreal set from the Kent comic about a mad man he met in the post office, Darwinian evolution, and his grandma who once laid an egg through her mouth. It seems Howell’s just being weird for the sake of it, which is fine if it’s funny, but…

Philberto

Enjoyably silly

18 Aug 2009

The Portuguese reality star is having a few problems with his mute brother, self-esteem issues and anger management. But he’s determined to entertain with a Vanilla Ice rap, Chas ‘n’ Dave tribute to Cockneys and showing his sensitive side in an ode to…

The Divine Comedy Hour

Two stand-ups dripping with niceness

18 Aug 2009

The complete opposite of macho shock merchants, Andy Kind and Tony Vino are two stand-ups dripping with niceness. The bluest it gets is Kind apologising for accidentally uttering a ‘sod’. Their right-on credentials, free chocolate, singing ‘Happy…

Barry & Stuart

Mischievous manner and playful banter

18 Aug 2009

This Scottish duo combine illusion with the gleefully grotesque in a Penn & Teller stylee. Their mischievous manner and playful banter – with each other and the audience – serves to amuse and their tricks amaze (and in some cases disgust). It’s a strong…

Russell Kane

A natural jester

18 Aug 2009

This multi-accented, ‘Lego-haired’, prancing ex-chav turned Tolstoy reader delivers a guide to human behaviour, wondering why Daves and Garys pick on feminised modern men like himself, and why Brits secretly envy Aussies and Americans. He’s a natural…

Dave Thornton

Nearly as hot as a shrimp on a barbie

18 Aug 2009

It would be easy to think the ‘Aussie abroad’ shtick has been done exhaustively from Crocodile Dundee to the many Antipodean stand-ups on the circuit, but Thornton can hold his own with some ‘bonzer’ material. A friendly demeanour, knack for visual and…