Peggy Hughes

Michael Ondaatje - The Cat's Table

An adventurous coming-of-age tale

24 Aug 2011

(Jonathan Cape) ‘Over the years, confusing fragments, lost corners of stories, have a clearer meaning when seen in a new light, a different place.’ From the decks and holds of the Oronsay, as seen by a Michael and his two mischievous young friends…

Lights! Camera! Improvise!

Invention, energy and singing show where audience chooses the theme

23 Aug 2011

Invention, energy and singing are all rolled into one fun-flecked show, in which the audience chooses the theme, location and title of a movie and the talented Scat Pack improvise the rest. Here, we were transported to a rom-com in a Scunthorpe…

Slim in Wonderland

Anecdotes amusingly and conspiratorially shared

23 Aug 2011

Men and women, children today (‘spoilt’), his former life driving buses in London and the time he suffered from a penile fracture are all amusingly, conspiratorially shared. Sadly for Slim, his wonderland is a cavernous raked venue, but with fulsome…

Daljit Nagra - Tippoo Sultan’s Incredible White-Man-Eating Tiger Toy-Machine!!!

Second collection is something very exciting indeed

19 Aug 2011

(Faber) Daljit Nagra’s second collection, with its lavish title, shouty cover art, abundant exclamation marks, italics and CAPS, marks another fine display of showmanship. Nagra swaggers through the ‘gyres and galaxies’ of the English tradition…

The Boom Jennies: Blowout

An exhilarating and surprising blowout

18 Aug 2011

‘Three ambassadors of fun’, the tannoy voice intones as we await the parting of the curtain. ‘A joy strudel to stuff in your faces!’ The Pleasance’s continuity announcer didn’t lie, and it’s easy to compare these funny, endearing, dynamic girls to Smack…

Bella Bathurst - The Bicycle Book

New literary vehicle for Lighthouse Stevensons author

16 Aug 2011

Bella Bathurst’s The Bicycle Book navigates the past and present of two-wheeled travel. From the suffragettes who recognised it as a ‘freedom machine’ to the huge rise in cycling’s popularity in Britain since the millennium, it features a cast of…

Stephen Carlin: Guilty Bystander

Unsettlingly funny with flashes of greatness

16 Aug 2011

Performing in front of a photofit of his own Yorkshire Ripperish face, Stephen ‘not obsessed with snooker’ Carlin’s Guilty Bystander is unsettlingly funny. Best when he’s being bitter – railing against cheating women or family Christmases – or riffing…

John Lynn

Affable comic story-telling with a neat turn of phrase

15 Aug 2011

No matter his subject material, which ranges in profundity from colonoscopies to making the perfect tomato and cheese sandwich, the roguish Lynn is able to mould it into a melodious, charming yarn. An affable, natural performer, he’ll send you away with…

Casual Violence

Versatile cast perform cherfully absurd sketches

14 Aug 2011

‘Six bastards meet their death’ in this cheerfully absurd sketch show. Lively and loud, it’s an excellent instance of what wonders can be achieved with a lilo, George Michael and a depressive, vodka-swilling clown. Though the result is not quite the…

Jen Brister is British(ish)

Wonderfully madcap look at identity

12 Aug 2011

Jen Brister has got it all going on in this splendid hourful of laughing till your face hurts. As a half-Spanish, ‘sepia’-tinged lesbian from London, the question ‘yeah, but where do you come from originally?’ led her to consider what it means to be…

Francesca Martinez

A charmingly caustic look at ‘normal’

8 Aug 2011

She may be ‘the world’s wobbliest comedian’, but the force of Francesca Martinez’s convictions and the energy with which she puts them across never falter in a show that’s as hard-hitting as it is caustically funny. She takes to the stage with this…

Alistair Green: Outpatient

Entertaining riffs in illness-themed show not for the squeamish

8 Aug 2011

Outpatient retells Green’s experience of having life-threatening kidney disease diagnosed, and is as hard to stomach as Henoch-Schönlein purpura is to pronounce. Not for the squeamish or hypochondriac, though ‘technically interesting’ with some…

Miranda France - Hill Farm

Rural drama is a lot better than the blurb would have you believe

15 Mar 2011

‘It was the summer that everything changed’ the dust jacket intones. For farmer’s wife Isabel Hayes (mid-thirties, with three children, adventureless in a small farming community and a stale marriage), something had to give. We are promised ‘a handsome…

Nina Conti

A vast talent for voices and timing

22 Aug 2010

‘First rule of performing: make it look easy; second rule: don’t fuck the elephants.’ Since there are no elephants in this show, Nina Conti succeeds in following monkey’s advice impeccably in prising apart the elderly art of ventriloquism in another…

Adam Vincent

Enjoyably oddball

18 Aug 2010

Adam Vincent doesn’t want to be a nurse, and with the cut of his comedy jib, why bother with the arduous hours, the inflamed hypochondria and the sick people that the job entails. Sometimes preachy, his is an otherwise enjoyably oddball set that…

Lach

Minutely referential and full of pithy asides

16 Aug 2010

This frenetic, guitar-wielding New Yorker laces together humorous vignettes and songs with long titles about growing up, including tributes to Kiss and meandering paeans to pot. Minutely referential and full of pithy asides, Lach’s particular skill is…

Joseph Stiglitz

Helping us mend our economic ways

13 Aug 2010

Can money make us happy? This timeless question, made all the more pressing by the brassic ‘financial climate’ we’re shivering through at the moment, is to be addressed by celebrated thinkers in the Meaning of Money strand at this year’s Book Festival…

Giacinto Palmieri

This stilted performance was a pile of sweaty meatballs

10 Aug 2010

Due to Palmieri’s comically strong Italian accent and the manic whirring of several fans, it was hard to determine precisely how funny this gentle narrative about nationality and language was or wasn’t. Respect to the man for his charm, and attempting…

Scott Agnew proves himself as storyteller with eye for absurd

Devilish entertainer with broad appeal

8 Aug 2010

Powerhouse Scott Agnew returns to the Fringe with this seamlessly laidback and funny narrative about the lengths he – and by extension, we – have gone to for love. This popular ‘anti-queen Glasgow poof’ isn’t squeamish when it comes to dissecting odd…

Gemma Goggin - Get Laid or Die Trying

Hilarious and graphic sex tales

8 Aug 2010

Bridget Jones meets Victoria Coren in the formidably busty and bright-eyed form of Gemma Goggin, a woman in her 30th year seeking desperate and dubious routes to love.

Natasha Walter's fight for women's equality

She presents her new book Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism

6 Aug 2010

Following sold out events at Brighton, Dublin, the South Bank and Latitude, writer and campaigner Natasha Walter is hitting the Edinburgh International Book Festival to stress that the struggle for women’s equality is as important as ever. To some…

Candia McWilliam will discuss her memoir at the EIBF

The festival veteran considers her own difficult story

6 Aug 2010

‘I have loved the Edinburgh International Book Festival all its 22 years,’ says Charlotte Square Gardens veteran Candia McWilliam. ‘It makes an annual conversation about books and about thinking, about what it is to share in the examined life. It is…

Maile Chapman - Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto

23 Jul 2010

(Jonathan Cape) Crackling with a fitful nervous energy, Maile Chapman’s novel is the arrestingly titled Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto. It concerns a convalescent hospital set among Finnish pinewoods in the 1920s, harbouring women with…

Derek Walcott - White Egrets

10 Mar 2010

(Faber) Derek Walcott’s White Egrets was years in the writing, its publication coming after last year’s Poetrygate which resulted in his reputation smeared through allegations of sexual harassment. If there was one way in which Walcott could get the…

Lorenza Foschini - Proust’s Overcoat

Short, slight but fascinating tale on obsession and status

16 Feb 2010

(Portobello) In Proust’s Overcoat lies an intriguing and dainty little tale of a man who finds his vocation in preserving items of a lost time. Jacques Guérin is a wealthy perfumier and bibliophile who started to read the works of Proust at the age…

The Sticky Bivouac

Ill-judged, inconsistent variety

12 Aug 2009

This features a twitching, manic guddle of music, mime, puppets and innuendo by three-piece suited entertainer ‘Jeff Window’, aka self-styled ‘foolosophist’ Paul Currie. His redoubtable range, talent and charisma manage to shine through a string of…

Fergus Craig Still Watches Neighbours

How soap can save your soul

11 Aug 2009

‘When it’s good, it’s alright, but when it’s bad it’s better,’ is the mantra all hardened Neighbours fans agree upon. Fergus Craig is one of the few to have remained loyal, following the hugely popular Aussie soap’s shift to Five and the endearing…

Elaine Malcolmson & Niall Browne: All Kinds of Everything

Cheeky N’Ireland pair do a video nation thing

11 Aug 2009

Elaine Malcolmson and Niall Browne are Northern Ireland’s top comics based in Scotland. With All Kinds of Everything, they attempt to dismantle their country’s still lingering public image of bombs, bullets and balaclavas by hingeing their show on a…

Paul Sinha

The former GP continues to disappoint his parents with his stand-up show

11 Aug 2009

The "Light up" refrain from Snow Patrol’s 'Run' is an apt intro for former GP Sinha’s bittersweet tale of singledom, casual racism and the parental disappointment wrought in turning to stand-up. Politically topical, championing quizzes and defending…

The Boom Jennies

Yummy mummies sketch out society's most awkward moments

11 Aug 2009

This winsome trio deliver a satisfying platter of traditional sketch show fun by leaning on social repartee’s potential horrors, the gentle hilarity of repetition and the delayed punchline. With particularly adroit deployment of physical comedy…

Kristen Schaal & Kurt Braunohler

Schaal and pal delve into surreal corners

21 Aug 2008

A warning is gently dispatched: Double Down Hearts will break our minds. Co-written in reverse chronological order by Kristen Schaal, of Flight of the Conchords fame, and Kurt Braunohler, her ‘gift’ of a comedy partner, the play pastiches the melodrama…

Aeneas Faversham Forever

Dreadfuls give us a daring, playful and epic tale

21 Aug 2008

A trio of Victorian gentlemen humourists, the Penny Dreadfuls bring you the visually resplendent, aurally pleasurable Aeneas Faversham Forever, one of this year’s most scrumptious and comically edifying Fringe treats. Something shadily undefined yet…

Funny. Twice.

21 Aug 2008

An inoffensive show in a boiling shoebox of a venue, Damion Larkin verbally fondles loneliness and boobies, Jimmy McGhie waxes Londonishly about computer games and holidays. Most refreshing when dissecting their own delivery, Larkin's faux misery and…

Ross Raisin

Creating a malevolent teenager trapped on the Moors

14 Aug 2008

Ross Raisin burst onto the literary scene flanked by quotes from JM Coetzee and Colm Toibin. Dubbed ‘one of the most eagerly awaited literary debuts of 2008’, God’s Own Country didn’t disappoint. Set on the Yorkshire Moors, it is about Sam Marsdyke, a…

Bookslam

Ripping up the stuffy literary world

14 Aug 2008

‘People think live readings are supposed to be 20-minute monotones about the “quality of light on the mountains” and unfortunately they often are,’ says Alan Bissett, master of ceremonies for a stagefull of Dan Rhodes (pictured), Patience Agbabi and…

Richard Holloway - Between the Monster and the Saint

14 Aug 2008

PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS (Canongate) Richard Holloway talks himself and us in and out of moral corners in this reflection upon the nature of good and evil and analyses their tug of war with intellectual ease. Beginning by contemplating the monster and…

Craig Hill

14 Aug 2008

Time shimmies in the company of all-singing, all-bitching comedian Hill. The East Kilbride leather-kilted diva draws a huge crowd due to his magnetic, conspiratorial presence, and is never lost for words, his whip-cracking wit so sharp it whistles…

Adventures of Pink Peter

14 Aug 2008

What do you get when you cross dress an ex-Blue Peter host, Croydon's premier ex-personal shopper and Vera, pretend sister of Valerie Singleton? Stuart Miles, ghost of childhood past, dons heels, wigs and desperation in an attempt to cast off that goody…

Roy Walker

The King of deadpan says what he sees

7 Aug 2008

The crappy pixels. Mr Chips. The triumphal opening strains and the arrangements accompanying each clue. Who could forget Catchphrase, one of the most durable game shows of its generation, as famous for all of the above as for host Roy Walker's own…

Simon Brodkin

7 Aug 2008

Brodkin's incarnation Lee 'Nelsy' Nelson, is a chav who bounces upon us amid a billow of dry ice and a pumping soundtrack. His gags are laddish, relayed with puppyish enthusiasm. His charm can evidently win an audience around, but freewheeling with such…

Michael Fabbri

7 Aug 2008

The loose theme of Fabbri's performance is his own stupidity, but it's apparent that here lies intelligence in spades. Verbally prat-falling like a consummate idiot savant, his material digresses from the quizzical to the political, with an oddball take…

Paul Bibeau - Sundays with Vlad

19 Jun 2008

COMIC TRAVELOGUE (Constable & Robinson) Paul Bibeau is a man on a mission. He wants to tell the world the story of Dracula, the real Vlad the Impaler facing off against Bela Lugosi’s Hollywood-ised version, and explaining why never the twain can meet.

Steven Galloway - The Cellist of Sarajevo

24 Apr 2008

WARTIME DRAMA (Atlantic) ‘It is a sad tune. But it doesn’t make me sad,’ someone said of the cellist who played Albinoni’s ‘Adagio’ for 22 days in remembrance of innocents killed while standing in a queue for bread. This is a sad book, but it might…

Ross Raisin - God’s Own Country

28 Feb 2008

RURAL DRAMA (Viking) The view from Ross Raisin’s pedestal must be a particularly terrifying one, especially after verbal leg-ups from the likes of JM Coetzee and Colm Toibin. Happily, ‘one of the most eagerly awaited literary debuts of 2008’ does not…

Duncan McLaren

18 Oct 2007

BIOGRAPHY Looking for Enid (Portobello) Eileen Soper’s artwork of the Famous Five adorns the dust jacket of Duncan McLaren’s personal response to Enid Blyton. Inside, enthusiasm bordering on mania abounds and we could happily leave this…

Chris McCausland

23 Aug 2007

There are laughs and truths universally acknowledged aplenty in the company of blind comedian Chris McCausland with his tales of planes, trains and shameful ordeals. He takes a pop at bargain airlines and cryptic crosswords, and jollies his way through…

Tony Woods

23 Aug 2007

American Woods cultivates the awkward laugh. In fact, many of them are his own. Tapping the mic in a well-met gesture towards tough crowdism, he lazily relays his thoughts on adult themes of a predictably breasticular nature. Not shy of politics and…

Josie Long

16 Aug 2007

Josie Long is already holding court about nothing much as the sold-out audience squeezes in. She happily assures us that this is not to make it seem like a piece of avant-garde theatre, that she just likes to chat. Following on from last year’s runaway…

Pete Firman

16 Aug 2007

Pete Firman wanted to bring the curtain down on Hokum by swallowing a packet of lit cigarettes and regurgitating them one by one. He couldn’t because of the smoking ban and they threatened to shut down all the Underbelly venues if he’d hacked up the £50…

Francesca Martinez

16 Aug 2007

Martinez tells us from the outset that she doesn’t do chit chat, and this sentiment prevails. Proselytising on politics, religion and other weighty topics, she sometimes veers close to mere soap-boxing with the albeit admirable force of her convictions.