"Daniel Kitson"

Gary Delaney tells us what it takes to be a one-liner king

'The first joke is on the bedside table and the second joke is on the toilet, and so on'

While in front of a comedy crowd that could turn at any given minute, a stand-up needs to rely on a solid memory to make sure there are no juicy lulls for a heckler to bite into. When that comedian is a one-line/punchline gagmeister, it’s even more…

10 years of the Glasgow International Comedy Festival

Joan Rivers, Kevin Bridges, Frankie Boyle and Sarah Millican among the highlights of the last decade

2003 The very first festival opens with Daniel Kitson on the same night the Iraq War starts. Kitson is delayed getting to the show as the centre of Glasgow is brought to a standstill by anti-war protests. The pilot festival sells about 20,000 tickets…

Stuart Goldsmith on his comedy heroes

The kipper-juggling comic idolises Simon Munnery, Anthony Livingspace and Harry Hill

Simon Munnery is like a soothsayer, who peers into another dimension of comedy, and reports back to the real world. I wish I could spend five minutes seeing the universe from his extraordinary perspective, which I imagine is a bit like Photoshop but for…

Daniel Kitson: As of 1.52 GMT on Friday April 27th 2012 , This Show Has No Title

Stand-up playwright returns with meta-play monologue

A week after this new play from Daniel Kitson opened, The Telegraph ran a two-star review, describing it as ‘a sorry waste of his undoubted talent – and our time’. Kitson knew someone would do that though. At one point in his one-man play – a…

Rhod Gilbert: The Man With The Flaming Battenburg Tattoo rages at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe

The comedian who makes Basil Fawlty look like a Pilates teacher speaks to the List

You might expect Rhod Gilbert to greet his tenth year on the Fringe with some degree of pride. In a decade, the 43-year-old has risen from So You Think You’re Funny finalist to playing the Edinburgh International Conference Centre via various awards…

2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Comedy highlights

Tim Key, Andrew Doyle, Andrew Maxwell, Dylan Moran and more

Andrew Doyle. Last year, Doyle’s show featured some pretty ripe comedy bravado during a Crash Course in Depravity, while for this August he’s doing Whatever it Takes. Bold words from a daring comic. Andrew Maxwell. One of the most reliably gifted…

Opinion: Why Michael McIntyre's 'work-in-progress' show is a sham

The comedian is charging full price for a work-in-progress show

In a 2008 interview, Russell Howard declared that he was done with the Edinburgh Fringe. Not because he was sick of the month-long slog or disgusted by all those generally positive reviews. He put an abrupt end to spending August in Scotland because he…

Highlights from the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe programme

Daniel Kitson, Billy the Mime and Paolo Bianchi set to appear

The Fringe madness is looming on the horizon and as long as the nation isn’t holed up with Olympics fever, this could well be another record-breaking year. You’ll be less than surprised to hear there’s a massive amount of comedy on show, including a…

Late'n'Live Guide to Comedy

The greatest hits of the legendary Fringe bear-pit makes an appearance on TV

‘The performing equivalent of self-harm’ is how Johnny Vegas describes the bearpit hell of the notorious Late’n’Live. Brainchild of the Gilded Balloon’s head honcho Karen Koren, this Edinburgh Fringe staple has been sending chills down the spines of…

Interview: US comedian Todd Barry set for Edinburgh Fringe

High hopes for American Hot show from 'third conchord'

When Todd Barry made his Fringe debut in 2004, the experience didn’t seem to be to anyone’s liking. Stuck in a cavernous hall with a near-midnight start time, people failed to show up in their droves and those who did couldn’t quite get to grips with…

Sarah Millican and Russell Kane on their favourite Edinburgh places

Edinburgh Festival Fringe regulars give us their insiders' insight

There's a lot to love about the city in August, especially if you know where to look. Two top comedians and Festival old-timers give us their insiders' insight

My Comedy Hero: Paul Sinha on Daniel Kitson

Comedian salutes talent and supreme ambition of friend and hero

My comedy hero is Daniel Kitson. I am certainly not breaking new ground with this choice. There is a breed of comedy fan who speaks of Daniel Kitson’s body of work with hushed reverence, and for many years bootleg tapes of his best work have been passed…

The best upcoming theatre shows in Scotland for Spring 2011

A guide to the unmissable shows in theatreland til June

Girl X On tour, 4 March–20 April Brilliant Belgian director Pol Heyvaert, who directed Aalst for the National Theatre of Scotland, hooks up with Glasgow actor Robert Softley for a provocative play based on the controversial case of Ashley X, a girl…

The Hot 100 2010 - Mark Millar, Kevin Bridges and Alasdair Gray take top 3 spots

Our annual chart of the top creatives in Scotland

The Hot 100 is a list of Scots who’ve made a sizeable creative splash in 2010. It includes musicians, artists, writers, actors, fashion designers, technological innovators, shop owners, festival directors, record label heads and one mad cyclist.

Invisible Dot Club: By The Sea

Stellar line-up like to be beside the seaside

The Invisible Dot’s secret venue for tonight’s gig is revealed to be the Portobello Town Hall, which, when you think about it, makes a lot of sense – it’s the only venue in the seaside suburb big enough to hold the few hundred people boarding buses on…

It’s Always Right Now, Until It’s Later

Achingly beautiful stories from a normal bloke

Daniel Kitson is a prodigiously talented comedian and storyteller. He’s also a normal guy. He announces himself normally, strolling onto the stage and thanking his audience for coming to such an early show (10am). He says he’s going to tell two stories…

Ventriloquist Nina Conti brings new show to Fringe

Talk to the Hand brings chat-show format to puppetry

Once a reluctant ventriloquist, Nina Conti is now exploring the possibilities of the form. Brian Donaldson hears about weird gigs and strange road trips

Doc Brown: Rapper turned stand-up hits Edinburgh

Unfamous rapper turned on to comedy by big sister Zadie Smith

Rapper geek turned stand-up Doc Brown has always felt like an outcast despite moving in some rarefied media circles. Claire Sawers discovers that he’s fine talking about his famous author sister. For now …

Danielle Ward - My Comedy Hero: Chris Morris

My comedy hero is Chris Morris. Many people assume the only point of a comedian is to make people laugh, but an ambitious comic realises there is much more potential than that. Chris Morris is an artist rather than a tradesman, creating things rather…

If You Prefer a Milder Comedian Please Ask for One - Stewart Lee interview

In his new show, Stewart Lee compares himself to a raft of personalities who appear to have let themselves go: Ray Liotta, Morrissey, KD Lang and Terry Christian among them. In the flesh, 41-year-old Lee might be barely recognisable from the comedic…

Hitlist: Comedy

A fortnight of laughs

Alun Cochrane The daydreaming Yorkshire lad who was born in Glasgow gives us the kind of blistering show that earned a mighty five stars from us in August. The Stand, Glasgow, Mon 26 Oct; The Stand, Edinburgh, Tue 27 Oct. Daniel Kitson He…

Theatre and comedy in Edinburgh and Glasgow

The Edinburgh Festival has just packed up its bags and rolled out of town again, taking with it some of the best stand-up comedians, forward thinking theatre groups and crazy drag-jazz-mime acts that the world has to offer. But that doesn’t mean…

Edinburgh Comedy Award nominations

Who's up for the Fringe's top prize?

The name may be up for debate, but what isn't in doubt is the prestige of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards and the impact it can have on a comic's career. Known in its most memorable form as the Perrier Award from 1981 to 2005, followed by a brief stint…

The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church

Epistolary tale is an exhilarating experience

Old, forgotten, secret and hidden stuff all push Daniel Kitson’s buttons. It’s one of the reasons why he’s ‘an inveterate emotional hoarder’ and won’t throw away mementoes and decades-old love letters. The comedian and playwright also loves glimpsed…

Five festival over-achievers

Robin Ince One can only assume that Robin Ince sits in a thick blue funk for that small portion of the day when he isn’t A) hosting a ‘lunchtime celebration of science and the wonderful’, B) being a ‘bleeding-heart liberal’ or C) opposing ‘the moral…