Profile

Dylan Moran

Good stock

30 Oct 2008

Despite the current economic doom and gloom, or more likely because of it, live comedy is booming, with a host of big names currently touring the UK. And while luminaries like the Mighty Boosh, Sarah Silverman, Steve Coogan and Lee Evans have recently…

Terence Davies

Liverpool echo

30 Oct 2008

Of Time and the City is an idiosyncratic and deeply personal documentary essay, which draws on vivid archival footage and some inspired musical selections (everything from Mahler to Peggy Lee), it's narrated by Terence Davies, who peppers his commentary…

Simon Day

30 Oct 2008

From white rapper to alcoholic car salesman, Simon Day has taken on a wide and varied range of comedy personas over the years - most famously getting us giggling with his hilarious skits on successful sketch show The Fast Show. But he's tired of only…

Valerio Zurlini

Italian Stallion

30 Oct 2008

In one of his last-ever interviews, Italian director Valerio Zurlini discussed his life-long passion for Leo Tolstoy. 'What I find extraordinary in his work,' Zurlini observed, 'is the remarkable fusion between public and private history'. Zurlini never…

Profile - Toby Jones

30 Oct 2008

Name Toby Jones Born 7 September 1967, Oxford, England Background In 2001, the diminutive British actor premiered his self-penned monologue – Missing Reels at the Edinburgh Fringe. The show was an entertaining account of how his role as a…

Umek

30 Oct 2008

Name Umek Also known as Uros Umek Occupation The biggest name in Slovenian techno, whose reputation is growing around Europe and even further afield. Where is he from? Ljubljana, where he was born 32 years ago. A teenage devotee of the…

Profile - Tarsem Singh

16 Oct 2008

Name Tarsem Singh Born 6 May 1961 Background Against the wishes of his pilot father, who wanted him to attend Harvard Business School, Singh made his way instead to Los Angeles and won a scholarship to the Art Center College of Design. After…

Profile - Ulrich Seidl

2 Oct 2008

Name Ulrich Seidl Born November 24, 1952, Vienna Background A graduate of the Vienna Film Academy, Seidl spent the first 20 years of his career making a series of controversial ‘documentaries’ for television, including Animal Love (which Werner…

Profile - Orlando Voorn

2 Oct 2008

Name: Orlando Voorn Occupation: Pioneer of Dutch techno, whose early obsessions with electro and hip hop turned into a love affair with the Detroit sound at the end of the 80s. The Detroit sound? So we aren’t talking your stereotypical ‘tops…

Profile - Paul Sinha

2 Oct 2008

1 The doctor is out He is indeed. Sinha might not be the UK’s only gay GP, but he is the world’s only gay Bengali GP who moonlights as a stand-up comic. This situation, as you might imagine, gives him plenty of material to go on. 2 He’s a Fringe…

Profile - Armin van Buuren

18 Sep 2008

Name: Armin van Buuren Occupation: The reigning number one DJ in the world, if you believe the readers of DJ magazine. But of course, you don’t get to such a pinnacle of global popularity these days without playing trance somewhere in your set, and…

Profile: Saul Dibb

4 Sep 2008

Name: Saul Dibb, Born: London, England, 1968. Background: Dibb started his career working on documentaries. Lifters followed a group of shoplifters and 2003’s Easy Money detailed the life of a couple working in the porn industry. He also worked as a…

5 things you might not know about Pete Firman

4 Sep 2008

Firman was born in Middlesbrough, he made the breakthrough into TV by filming himself doing some tricks in his back garden, he was hugely influenced by Penn and Teller, he once did a trick with an egg and sparkler which went down a storm and his…

Profile - Paul Woolford

21 Aug 2008

Name Paul Woolford Also known as Bobby Peru (also Willem Defoe’s character in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart), Hip Therapist (just a pun, really) and more. Occupation ‘Picking the cultural zeitgeist like a bogey’, says his MySpace headline. Ick. We…

Louis CK

Domestic policy

14 Aug 2008

Championed by Ricky Gervais, loved by late-night US TV and censored by his wife, Louis CK is preparing to launch his brand of outrageous confessional comedy on the UK. Claire Prentice finds out just how far he's prepared to go. Louis CK is driving…

Russell Howard

Beat surrender

14 Aug 2008

Russell Howard can't resist a spot of testicular tomfoolery but, he tells Jay Richardson, his new act is less Buster Gonad than Jack Kerouac With his infectious, wide-eyed optimism currently offering a counterbalance to Frankie Boyle's unflinching…

Profile - Antonio Forcione

7 Aug 2008

Name Antonio Forcione Occupation ‘The Jimi Hendrix of the acoustic guitar’. What does that involve? Being unutterably talented. The rags-to-riches tale of Forcione busking in Covent Garden while unable to speak English is romantic; it was…

Profile - Gurinder Chadha

31 Jul 2008

Name Gurinder Chadha Born Nairobi, 1960 Background Born in Kenya but raised in England, Chadha began her career as a BBC news reporter, breaking into directing with the 1989 documentary I’m British But..., focusing on the life and culture of…

'It’s a comedy colonic!' - David O’Doherty

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

22 Jul 2008

Jay Richardson meets David O’Doherty, the mild-mannered comic whose musical musings and offbeat observations have won him a legion of indie followers. This year he’ll be feeding his insomnia by entertaining kids and adults alike As an award-winning…

Mick Sergeant

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

22 Jul 2008

Touted as the next Steve Coogan, this year marks the first solo show for character comic Lee Fenwick who has previously delighted Fringe crowds as one half of spoof German techno band Die Clatterschenkenfietermaus. For his debut, Fenwick is presenting…

Death in Benes - Carol Leifer

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

22 Jul 2008

Having been convinced that playing a Fringe show in the late afternoon is no bad thing, US comic and Seinfeld muse Carol Leifer is now getting excited about her Edinburgh August. Julian Hall makes sure he doesn’t mention the ‘E’ word You may not know…

Omid Djalili

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

22 Jul 2008

There are several downsides to modern fame. Being hassled in the street by ordinary people and getting hunted down by paparazzi when hanging out the washing are just two celebrity negatives. Having chirpy researchers from celebrity TV shows ringing up…

Saturday’s child - Tina Fey - Baby Mama

17 Jul 2008

America’s newest great comedy phenomenon is Tina Fey. Eddie Harrison uncovers the comic genius in her first big screen adventure, Baby Mama

Pornography - Simon Stephens interview

Shock values - Traverse Theatre

17 Jul 2008

As the Traverse embarks on its first Edinburgh Festival Fringe season under the artistic directorship of Dominic Hill, Steve Cramer talks to acclaimed dramatist Simon Stephens, writer of Pornography, about 7/7 and a new definition of the pornographic

In Which They Serve

17 Jul 2008

The British Film Institute’s re-release of the rarely seen and now beautifully restored David Lean film The Passionate Friends is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the celebration of the centenary of the great British filmmaker’s birth. In…