Suzanne Black

Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle

18 Sep 2008

GOTHIC TALE With so many books on all our to-read lists, brevity is a virtue. The Gargoyle flouts this with great success. Framed by the sceptical voice of a severely burned car crash victim, events swing from medieval times to the present, from…

Glasvegas - Glasvegas

4 Sep 2008

‘The Best New Band in Britain’ says the NME. And for once they have thrown their fickle arrow of instant fame at a worthy target. In 2006, former footballer James Allan assembled a motley crew to give form to his ‘poems’ – disjointed conglomerations of…

Glasgow Pride

Out and proud

21 Aug 2008

It’s that time of year again. Dig out the cowboy hats, the feather boas and anything whatsoever with a rainbow on it. Oh, and dig out your conviction about your sexuality because this is one of the best days of the year to make a statement, celebrate…

Janey Godley

Family tale from straight-talking Glaswegian

21 Aug 2008

The title of this show, Domestic Godley, doesn’t refer to the cooking, cleaning, dinner parties ‘domestic goddess’ stereotype. Janey Godley’s candid stand-up is specific to her east end of Glasgow upbringing and subsequently eventful life. With a…

Miniprofile: Jay Brannan

Sound sugar-coated acoustica with crystal clear swooping vocals and an edge of stark sexuality.

21 Aug 2008

Was it terrifying releasing your first album Goddamned yourself? It seems like the natural order of things to me because I’m such a weird person with very specific ideas and opinions and beliefs. It’s a lot of work, for sure. I’m like, ‘do I get to…

And the Devil May Drag You Under

21 Aug 2008

Diabolical cabaret in which the audience must vote each act into Heaven or Hell based on the purity of said act's soul. Host and hostess the Devil and Miss Mephisto are satanically delightful with their songs and skits, but some of the acts (which range…

Junk Band Story: Uh?!

21 Aug 2008

'Uh?!' is right. Billed as music, comedy and martial arts, in reality it's a bewildering musical comedy played on instruments assembled from junk (think Stomp with a glue gun). The show is cobbled together from comedic skits, tantalisingly brief…

Kei Miller

Jamaican voice aching to be heard

21 Aug 2008

In a famous sketch by Bill Hicks, the great comedian is stumped by the question, ‘What are you reading for?’ The enquiry – and its correlative, ‘What are you writing for?’ – are deceptively simple. For Kei Miller, the Jamaican-born poet, novelist and…

Raymond Mearns

21 Aug 2008

Mearns is a formidable character, an apoplectic hurricane of bluster as he details his exploits on the cruise ship comedy circuit, family life and other unrelated topics. The gathering rage whips up momentum but the punchlines often fail to land. He's…

Saving Tania's Privates

21 Aug 2008

This show should come with a warning. Not because of the references to lesbian sex and liberal attitudes to everything else - being open to that should go without saying. But because one woman (Tania Katan) exposes her survival of breast cancer (twice)…

Secret Agents

21 Aug 2008

This tale of a terrorist incident posits, refutes and amends aspects along the way in a risky attempt at meta-drama. When it works, the structure builds like a house of cards in a comment on the construction of truth, but plot holes and an obvious…

Umbrage Swain

New Romantic heroes stand and deliver

21 Aug 2008

The New Romantic Gentleman Thief (looking uncannily like Eddie Izzard dressed as Adam Ant), his Cure-loving sidekick and Tina Fray (an excellently faux innocent Millie Reeves) swash and buckle in battle with evil baddie The Darkness (no, not Justin…

Gavin & Gavin

14 Aug 2008

The two bickering Gavin sisters pillage their Irish heritage to offer up domestic skits and 'aren't the Oirish funny' jokes while lamely trying to undercut their nice-girl personas with misjudged vulgarity bombs. When they reach an anecdote about…

Greg Fleet

14 Aug 2008

He's Aussie, ex-Neighbours stock and a reformed drug abuser but none of these facts are important. Eschewing high concepts, he moulds observations about Edinburgh, confessional soul-baring and deconstructions of controversial humour into anecdotes that…

Ismo Leikola

14 Aug 2008

The Finnish stand-up has the stage persona of a deceptively cuddly, long-haired faux-naïf, which makes his irreverent and slightly risqué material seem even more shocking. Despite starting well with some observational belters, his nonchalant style…

Motherland

Narratives of soldiers’ mothers who bear the burden of war

14 Aug 2008

Motherland is a piece of verbatim theatre, which gives voice to the testaments of women from the north east of England who had children serving in the armed forces in war zones. With the least amount of staging, the individual voices, which are studied…

Pig Island - Simply Fancy

14 Aug 2008

These Australian players call themselves Pig Island, but they may as well hail from Mars. Their absurd adventure pits witless non-hero Brian, his spunky daughter and possibly robotic son against stock fantasy characters and a manta ray. Each line…

Sideshow: The Weirdest Show on Earth

Electric cabaret with a dark side

14 Aug 2008

This isn’t any cabaret show. This is a circus on acid (or perhaps the poppers that the beautiful freak crowds are into nowadays). This is a late-night step into the realm of nightmares for a dastardly conglomeration of comedic, titillating…

Desert storm

7 Aug 2008

‘The disease in question had, as its main deleterious effect, the fact that it renders its victims perfectly unable to write anything but 500-page books about the civil war in Sudan.’ The ‘victim’ in this case is US author Dave Eggers, but the…

Brendon Burns

Award winner is back and still pretty angry

7 Aug 2008

What do you get when you take an aggressive Aussie comic with a history of psychosis, substance abuse and vitriolic rants about every sector of humanity and award him the if.comeddie main award? Gladiator costumes, Schwarzenegger impressions and a…

Alex Horne

7 Aug 2008

The classically educated birdwatcher is on about neologistic invention (that's new words) this year. Imagine a self-deprecating hybrid of Stephen Fry and Dave Gorman holding court on his favourite subjects with some clever (if sometimes distracting…

Apes Like Me

7 Aug 2008

It's tough playing to a tiny crowd but most stand-ups are capable of going it alone without audience participation to lean on. Kate Smurthwaite excavates the seams of evolution, creationism and the close human/chimp relationship to create another…

Circus Oz: 30th Birthday Bash

Acrobatics with an Aussie accent

7 Aug 2008

Characters in colourful costumes exchange banter with the audience, the live band plays a constant stream of Gogol Bordello-like polka and one act involves a dramatic take on Frankenstein's monster. This isn't your average circus. Far more theatrical…

Jonny Woo: International Woman of Mr ‘E’

Moving and darkly comic one-(wo)man show

7 Aug 2008

Moving and darkly comic one-(wo)man show. Jonny Woo, drag queen darling of the London alt.queer scene appears onstage beneath sequined butterfly make-up and various costumes. He knows that the act of wearing a mask is designed to reveal rather than…

Lucky You

Carl Hiaasen novel translated into slick madcap romp

7 Aug 2008

If redneck losers Chub and Bode are going to fund their confederate militia they need JoLayne's winning Lotto ticket. But nature-loving JoLayne (who happens to be black) needs it to save local woodland. The church needs her help to legitimise their…