Reviews & features: Comedy
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Blind Date Ruined My Life
21 Aug 2012
Flavourless comedy reliving the cheesiness of 80s/90s TV
Most people remember Blind Date as a harmless, bland piece of programming which almost everyone seemed to watch. Our Cilla and her contestants offered the kind of light tea-time diversion which terrestrial television thrived on. It’s hard to imagine the…
Iain Stirling
21 Aug 2012
Fresh-faced honesty and natural charisma
Relying primarily on his deep charm, wicked sense of humour and red-hot wit, Iain Stirling possesses all of the born-with-it-or-you’re-not qualities associated with the world’s leading comics. Material in Happy to be the Clown? moves from discussing his…
Barry Castagnola - Where's Barry?
21 Aug 2012
Unique and fresh show with precision timing
Looking at character comedy from an entirely different perspective is 'Where's Barry?' The premise for the storyline is that star of the show Barry Castagnola, having found himself in a tricky situation must rely on a host of acquaintances to take to…
Gavin Webster: Bill Hicks Wasn’t Very Good
21 Aug 2012
…But he was certainly better than this
Outrage at the Fringe is usually induced by some Sadowitz-esque remark about a tragedy which occurred an hour before the gig. But there aren’t many forbidden topics for comedians themselves, a gauntlet which could, and should, have been slammed to the…
Richard Herring - Talking Cock
21 Aug 2012
Intelligent chat, with knobs on
’There was a clue in the title,’ Richard Herring points out, as one man heads for the exit ten minutes into the show. There was indeed, because all Herring does in this funny, educational and surprisingly touching hour, is talk about cock. Compared…
Katherine Ryan - Nature's Candy
21 Aug 2012
Dark comedy gossip from a disarmingly innocent-looking source
What you look like shouldn’t make any difference in comedy. Funny’s funny whatever the package. However, for Katherine Ryan, being pretty, diminutive, blonde and blue-eyed works rather well when what comes out of her mouth is as acidic as the lemons on…
Luke Benson - Backseat Hero
21 Aug 2012
Deadpan delivery and thin material get lost in the void
Bravely diverging from the ‘genial Geordie’ archetype, Luke Benson (aka Skywalker aka The Bensonator) has a deadpan, monotone delivery that fits well with his tales of urban discontent and gangly outsiderness (he’s 6’ 7”). Unfortunately this nuance is…
David O'Doherty
21 Aug 2012
Well-executed show on dark times wears thin
Fringe favourite David O'Doherty returns to Edinburgh with his new show show 'Seize the David O'Doherty'. The Irishman, whose appearances on Never Mind The Buzzcocks catapulted him in to the public eye, fuses a dry and subtle wit, self-depreciating…
Al Pitcher - Tiny Triumphs
21 Aug 2012
A funny if unchallenging appreciation of life’s little amusements
Most people are too busy to stop and appreciate life’s small absurdities, but not Al Pitcher. He spends his days taking photos of things that amuse him, then presents a slideshow of his results at that evening’s performance. It’s a performance style…
Lights! Camera! Improvise!
21 Aug 2012
Giving improv a good name
Banish all preconceived notions of improv being cringey or stilted, as there are no such qualms when it comes to the Scat Pack troupe. The premise is to create an entire film from scratch, directed by a chirpy host (Oscar, naturally) who pauses…
Jigsaw - Gettin' Jiggy
21 Aug 2012
Top sketch comedy from Dan Antopolski, Nat Luurtsema and Tom Craine
After a successful Fringe debut last year, the troupe return with another offering of what has to be one of the fastest-paced sketch shows about. Some skits last less than a minute before we’re plunged into the next. Stand-ups Dan Antopolski (the…
Four Screws Loose
21 Aug 2012
Intelligently conceived highlights rare in show that is largely filler
Sketch show foursome Four Screws Loose set out to find a comedic juxtapose of pantomime-style tomfoolery and the bizarre. The show opens with a music led and flamboyant introduction that, whilst prompting the obligatory audience clap-along, is old…
Silky
21 Aug 2012
Liverpudlian comic is keen to please but able to disturb
Unlike other performers that have descended on Edinburgh throughout the festival, Silky has opted not to plaster his posters around town. Going against the publicity grain, the comedian has instead placed his PR material on the underside of buses; and…
Matthew Crosby
20 Aug 2012
Slightly stilted affair from an otherwise very funny man
Given the majesty of this year’s main Pappy’s show, we can surely forgive Matthew Crosby (the small, bespectacled, beardy one of the trio) if he’s not firing on the same number of cylinders that powered his 2011 solo debut. Even so, he is able to…
Felicity Ward: The Hedgehog Dilemma
20 Aug 2012
High-speed hour of breathless laughs from charismatic comedienne
One way to freshen up material about relationships is to frame it in a cute thought experiment. Imagine two hedgehogs getting ready for winter. Do they cuddle together, and risk hurting each other with their spines? Or do they sit apart, not getting…
Carl Donnelly: Different Gravy
20 Aug 2012
A tickling rather than side-splitting hour from home-made autobiography writer
Carl Donnelly is a nice guy. Beginning his routine with a slide-show (before he gets on stage) of his home-made autobiography cover and jokey snaps of family and friends, it’s clear that here is someone not afraid to take the piss out of himself, never…
Guardian Reader
20 Aug 2012
Liberal leftie humour from William Hammer-Lloyd
The anonymous reader is a tall, lanky, floppy-haired, bearded, liberal, leftie, upper-middle class intellectual and former teacher. In other words, he’s the archetypal reader of the newspaper affectionately known as The Grauniad. Having become all too…
John Conway - The New Conway Dimension
20 Aug 2012
Small and daft is the order of the day in Conway's semi-anarchic routines
If you find yourself tiring of the slick, professional, often identikit comedians in town, you should cop a load of Australia’s John Conway. With laptop-wielding sidekick Michael Burke trying his utmost to keep proceedings reasonably on track, Conway…
Steve Shanyaski’s Life-Survival Bible
20 Aug 2012
Perfectly pleasant jokes masking an aimless set-up
Shanyaski is an all-guns-blazing kinda guy, barrelling onstage and wasting no time ingratiating himself to a late-night crowd. His is a show, he promises, that will help the hapless sods among us to navigate the challenges of everyday life, his…
Colin Mars: A Life Full of Lemons
20 Aug 2012
Over-egged and unoriginal fare
Life may have given Mars his fair share of lemons, but instead of making lemonade, a yawnworthy theme he continually comes back to, he's squeezed the metaphorical citrus dry leaving nothing but a sour pulp. Nervous and sweaty, the three-strong audience…
Pappy's: Last Show Ever!
19 Aug 2012
An hour of undiluted joy
First rule of comedy reviewing: never sit in the front row with a big notepad on your knee, scribbling away without a care in the world. Sometimes it’s not easy to get a spot where you can remain in the shadows and utterly anonymous but in a venue as…
Sam Simmons - About the Weather
19 Aug 2012
Noisy ‘play’ fails to do Aussie comic justice
Imagine a shouty hybrid of the horror movie Videodrome and that creepy old record ‘Sparky’s Magic Piano’ and you have a fairly accurate idea of Sam Simmons’ play-within-a-Fringe-comedy, About the Weather. ‘It’s going to be weird for an hour,’ roars the…
Sammy J & Randy - The Inheritance
19 Aug 2012
Triumph of style over substance
Yes, it’s funny that a purple puppet might swear and drink and smoke. And it’s probably amusing that he would hang out with a socially inadequate skinny nerd. But once you get used to those facts, and have nodded in admiration at the production values…
Taylor Glenn - Reverse Psycomedy
19 Aug 2012
Playing mind games with her crowd
There can’t be too many Fringe comedy shows (ie zero) that casually drop in phrases such as ‘cognitive behaviour’, ‘Gestalt theory’ or ‘psychodynamic therapy’. But then, not many Fringe comedians will have worked for eight years as a professional…
Gareth Morinan
19 Aug 2012
Slim pickings amid a frenzy of facts
Quite a busy boy is Gareth Morinan given that he has seven different shows at the Fringe including political debates, a bit of improv and spoken word events in which he speaks out about his opinions on David Cameron and Ricky Gervais (he’s not a fan of…
