Reviews & features: Blogs

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs: Desmond O’Connor

The worst possible time to lose your voice

It couldn’t have happened at a worse time; I was looking forward to the most exciting night of the Fringe in three of the seven shows on which I am working and I woke to find myself facing the worst nightmare that a performer can be forced to endure.

Fringe 2011 theatre blogs: Biding Time

Can we find alternative models for making theatre at the Fringe?

Market’s crashing, Somalia’s starving and London’s burning; Are we fiddling in Edinburgh while Rome burns this August? It takes a mental leap to see any real connection between the Edinburgh fringe festival and the state of the wider world, except…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs: The Suitcase Royale

Edinburgh is easy. Getting to Edinburgh is difficult.

We booked a private cab to pick us up from Battersea Arts Centre, where we’ve been staying, and take us to Luton Airport for our 6:15pm flight to Edinburgh. Being old hands, now, at touring, we thought it wise to leave three hours to get to the airport.

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs: Yianni

Periodic Table of Edinburgh

Ah Edinburgh. Back again so soon? Anyone who has spent an August at the Fringe knows it contains freakish space and time bending properties. Any event which takes place outside its borders exists outside of space and time and is – in essence…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Michael J Dolan

The Mancunian comic discusses hecklers and the world's shortest joke

One of the most overused of the tiny stockpile of go-to moronic taunts used by the average drunken heckler is, 'Tell us a joke.' As heckles go this, more than any other, indicates that the heckler's function within the gig is completely over. It…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - John Robertson

There’s still time to stop all this and get that doctorate …

I’ve only been heading out to festivals for a few years – and at almost every one of them, I’ve gone completely ballistic. Usually, it’s in the lead-up to the first performance, when I’m overrun by a combination of info from publicists, news on…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Nick Doody

The comic discusses how to circumvent the expense of the Fringe

It is expensive to put on a stand-up show at the Edinburgh Fringe. In 2006, my first solo show, Before He Kills Again, was arguably a hit, selling out the entire run and putting on two extra shows in a larger venue, both of which also sold out. That…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Jason John Whitehead

The five stages of coping with trauma... and the Fringe

This year my show is, on the surface, about the excuses that we’re always given when a relationship ends. Another relationship/heartbreak/anger in anguish kind of show but this time with a JJW twist. A strong theme of my show has been the five stages…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Lloyd Langford

The comic writes on the danger of fancy baths

It’s that time of year when I, and thousands of other performers, take over and squat in the Scottish capital for a month. August every year, comedians flock to the city in the hope of getting something big out of the Fringe. Stand ups in Edinburgh are…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Laurence Clark

Exploring American fears about the 'socialised medicine' of the NHS

The National Health Service may seem like an odd subject for an hour’s comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe. So why make a show about the NHS? Well for one, my own life has been profoundly shaped by it. Also it’s a subject that’s always in the news. Indeed…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Tony Law

An Interview with Tony Law, by Tony Law and for Tony Law. From Tony Law

You are not quite sure what a blog is, are you? Don't you mean am I? What? No. Blog is what we are doing right now as in, Intervblog. We are doing an Intervblog. Your show Go! Mr Tony Go! is on at the Stand at noon. It has been said that it…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Marcel Lucont

Every year at the Edinburgh Festival I am asked, 'Marcel, how do you maintain this air of carefree nonchalance during such an intense month? Surely, given the high standard of your shows, the pressure increases annually?' I reply, 'That is Monsieur…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Steve Pretty

He of the Perfect Mixtape discusses music vs comedy and proper Fringe preparation

By 30th July, any sensible Fringe performer would either already be in Edinburgh getting some early promo done, or locked away in a rehearsal room, honing their show, perfecting that topical gag or getting that new set piece extra zingy. So why, last…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Sarah Campbell

One half of Christmas For Two highlights the pitfalls of audience participation

Say it with me: audience participation. The comedian's friend. The punter's dread nemesis. I used to love a bit of, 'You with the top, what's your name?' But these days I'm not so sure. As a solo stand-up you can pick on people without fear, but with…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Lou Sanders

The comedian gives the inside scoop on securing accomodation

This year I thought I’d treat myself to a more luxurious apartment in Edinburgh – I really shelled out for a bobby dazzler of the flat world. This came with all the mod cons... if mod cons include 3 different types of mouse traps. Actually the one type…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Catie Wilkins

The little things that add to the theatrical experience

The great thing about the Edinburgh Festival is you never know what will be around the corner. I mean, you can usually take a punt that it will be a herd of flyerers, or some annoying street theatre, but sometimes the real life theatre going on around…

Reel Science events programme among highlights of Edinburgh Film Festival

Tomboy, My Brothers and Project Nim among film highlights

After my fearless leader’s less-than-generous appraisal of this aged Festival’s opening night, I’m hoping to bring a little bit of love for EIFF back to these web pages. Admittedly, the pared-down nature of this year’s Festival is most noticeable in the…

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011 opens with an Oirish whimper (not a bang)

65th festival gets underway despite disappointing opener The Guard

So the 65th edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival is now open. It opened last night, a balmy, spitty Wednesday evening, with a screening of John Michael McDonagh’s decidedly patchy Irish comedy policier The Guard starring Brendan Gleeson.

Roadkill, The Author and 30 Days to Space worthy 2010 festival winners

Steve Cramer's Festival blog

I know it’s not quite over, but with respect to the last couple of shows of the International Festival, now might be the time for the Festival’s final report card. This year’s Festival, if it has shown some good work, still creates the uneasy feeling of…

Myth of the far-left agenda in Alastair Beaton's Caledonia

Steve Cramer's Festival blog

In my last blog, I accused many of the companies engaging in the Fringe of lacking courage, and I’m sticking by it. You can always tell when there’s a political elephant in the room at a fringe, since invariably the more pusillanimous companies visiting…

Pornography takes centre stage at Fringe 2010

Steve Cramer's Festival blog

There are three steps down into the auditorium at the Traverse St Stephens. It’s not entirely at random that I warn you. As I entered said space I failed to spot this natty architectural folly, and launched myself, instead of into Apples, into thin air.

Why The Sun Also Rises is the least successful transatlantic crossing since Titanic

Steve Cramer's Festival blog

I suppose the one compensation of sitting through the unforgivable The Sun Also Rises at the Lyceum was that it provided a little relief from the endless prurient sex obsessions of the Traverse next door, where one leaves every other show with the…

Sex emerging as theme running through 2010 Edinburgh Fringe theatre

Steve Cramer's Festival blog

My first significant encounter this fringe, a week ago as I write, occurred at the door of the Traverse theatre with Jane Ellis, my esteemed fellow hack and wife of another much beloved colleague, Mark Fisher. As I made to enter the building, she seized…

Au Revoir Taipei, Honeymooner and Third Star bring EIFF 2010 to a close

Edinburgh International Film Festival Blog

Sunday 27 June. The closing days of the festival are a giddy affair: you realise that, after so many recommendations and bits of buzz floating about, the EIFF has mutated into this Cloverfield-like monster: there’s beautiful people wandering around…

Modern Love, Get Low, Aaron Schneider and the fragility of film-making at EIFF 2010

Edinburgh International Film Festival Blog

Friday 25 June Friday was my last day at the Festival, and I decided to use it to take a walk off the beaten EIFF track and check out Modern Love, a short film made by a bunch of teenagers from Fife in conjunction with a company called Media…