Reviews & features: Comedy, Jonny Ensall
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Tim Key interview: the poet discusses Edinburgh, Alan Partridge and 'sexy baths'
21 Sep 2011
Comedy Award winner brings his Masterslut show to the 2011 Fringe
The List has just presented Tim Key with two pages of facts about himself. ‘This is a very good piece of research,’ he says, commending the 16-year-old work experience person who compiled them. ‘I didn’t get to do anything like this on work experience.
Mark Thomas: Extreme Rambling (Walking the Wall)
12 Aug 2011
Following a dangerous tourist trail
The problem with political comedy is that, in sharing a joke with a person simultaneously making a serious point, you can easily become confused about what it is you’re signing up for. Added to this, Mark Thomas has an enviable rhetorical tool at his…
Jack Whitehall
11 Aug 2010
Lacking real substance
Having Robert Pattinson as a classmate has left Jack Whitehall with a chip on his shoulder, though you don’t feel the 22-year-old comic has real enthusiasm for bashing the Twilight star. Similarly, with jokes on swimming lessons and the vagaries of…
Rory Sheridan's Tales of the Antarctica
30 Aug 2011
David O’Doherty in very funny piece that risks becoming one-note in tone
Rory Sheridan is a lovesick man, who inadvertently ends up on an Antarctic expedition to win his bride. Sheridan is no Scott or Shackleton, he complains too much for a start – about the penguins, about the cabbage he has to eat, about the farts that…
David O'Doherty is Looking Up
19 Aug 2011
Immaculate content delivered with furious enthusiasm
David O’Doherty used to work in a German sausage factory. This might sound like a crass comedy set-up, but it is in fact true. His role was to drive a giant Hoover designed to suck up the smashed, sausage-filled jars that tumbled off the conveyer belts.
The Pajama Men
19 Aug 2011
Both brilliantly silly and brilliantly clever
In The Middle of No One is one of the most inventive, thoughtful and well-performed comedy shows on the Fringe, a whisker away from five-star glory, let down only by a slight lack of energy on the night of the performance. This, however, is…
Josie Long: The Future Is Another Place
19 Aug 2011
Stand up for the left
Josie Long is ready to rubbish a stock right-wing idea when a heckler interrupts. ‘Hear hear!’ the grumbler shouts back at the suggestion that a cleaner shouldn’t have to pay tax towards funding liberal arts degrees. Long looks shocked, uttering…
Thom Tuck Goes Straight to DVD
16 Aug 2011
Funny and heart-wrenching show on Disney films and painful break-ups
There are two themes in Tuck’s show: straight to DVD Disney films and severely painful break-ups. The connection isn’t immediately apparent, but Tuck’s brave finale combines both strands with some genuinely dark humour, while simultaneously his stage…
The Horne Section
15 Aug 2011
Toe-tapping jazz-and-comedy combo from Alex Horne and friends
Imagine how much funnier you could be if you had your own backing band to play along to your jokes; sing back your best one-liners; hit drum fills after your punchlines... Such is the set-up that three top acts are treated to c/o Alex Horne’s ensemble.
Lounge Room Confabulators
11 Aug 2011
Aussie troubadours paying home visits
‘Hello! It’s the Lounge Room Confabulators.’ A voice chimes cheerily through the intercom. The Confabulators – a pair of bearded Australians in Del Monte suits who will be performing an hour-long storytelling show in my home – ascend the stairwell…
Nathan Dean Williams
8 Aug 2011
Twisted pick ‘n’ mix
A clown accidentally sending a child into anaphylactic shock. A bullied teacher forcing chocolate cake into the mouth of a sex doll he calls ‘mummy’. A put-upon husband dressing up like Velma from Scooby Doo to meet the demands of his dominatrix wife.
Lounge Room Confabulators perform 2011 Fringe show in your home
20 Jul 2011
Edinburgh Festival Fringe duo bring their cabaret show to your house
Lounge Room Confabulators have hit on a wonderful idea in performing their show only in punters’ homes. List editor Jonny Ensall invites them to appraise his flat as a performance space
The shocking, rude and offensive highlights of the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe
6 Jul 2011
The controversial shows of Edinburgh Fringe 2011
If boundary-pushing comedy is your thing, or if you just like smutty jokes, you’ll no doubt find a suitably impolite act at the Fringe. Jonny Ensall ranks 2011’s controversial shows by their level of offensiveness
Rich Fulcher
24 Aug 2010
Smutty drag act comes on a little strong
‘A woman with tits’ is how Rich Fulcher introduces his current favourite character creation, Eleanor (The Tour Whore). Spotted first in season three of The Mighty Boosh, this dusky, seductive lady has been recast as a sordid super-groupie, happy to take…
Jimmy McGhie
16 Aug 2010
A set of simple but funny observations
The consumer perversions of iPhone owning, Tesco Metro shopping, gap-year funding middle-class twonks form the meat of McGhie’s show, and if you are such a twonk then you’ll enjoy laughing at your own foibles. Zaire despot Joseph Mobutu features as the…
Luke Toulson
16 Aug 2010
Plenty of bonhomie, but not much els
A sweet show from a decent bloke who’s recently kicked a drink habit features riffs on the perils of bad parenting (in reality, he’s probably a great dad), first dates and teaching geography. There’s not a lot more than good vibes to keep tepid material…
Dr Brown Because
15 Aug 2010
Physical comedy for willing idiots
Watching Dr Brown provides a good opportunity to test the theory that taste moves in circles. Or more specifically that something can become so stupid it will eventually plop back into the realm of bizarre genius. It’s a difficult call to make, but this…
Paul Sinha - Extreme Anti-White Vitriol
9 Aug 2010
Handling some hot political spuds
This year Paul Sinha walks the tightrope of political comedy, and just about manages to keep his balance. There are enough outright jokes in this show to keep a bog-standard comedy club audience entertained, but they’re liberally spaced through a set…
Rich Fulcher - From Mighty Boosh to Edinburgh Fringe's greatest groupie
16 Jul 2010
Mighty Boosh star tells the whore truth with 'groupie school' show
Squeezing out of the extra tight safari suit that made him a cult star with The Mighty Boosh, Rich Fulcher is throwing on some slinkier threads to morph into super-groupie Eleanor. Jonny Ensall wonders just how low he/she will go
Monsieur Montpellier: Entertainer Extraordinaire!
24 Aug 2009
Derren Brown he ain’t
In a well-trodden Fringe tradition, Monsieur Montpellier is a cabaret performer who just can’t help getting things wrong. Aided by his show-stealing assistant Le Cabaret, the grand monsieur waxes lyrical about his many life experiences (meeting Bernard…
Men with Bananas
21 Aug 2008
Hairy men Dave (the Chameleon) and Mark (the Bear) have bananas. The bananas are not really necessary, but they're squidgy and look like penises, which is more than enough to qualify them for this endearingly stupid show. The whole thing is carried off…
Chris Cox
21 Aug 2008
An amiable young man, Cox makes behavioural predictions about his audience by reading their body language, using neuro-linguistic programming and sometimes just peeking when his eyes are supposed to be closed. Frequent mistakes and bad guesses make this…
Kevin Gildea
7 Aug 2008
In revealing his very portly belly at the top of the show, Gildea plays his best hand too soon. The stomach dealt with, the show chugs along through some tepid observations with the laughter never rising above a light titter. Despite Gildea's best…
An Evening Without Dignity
7 Aug 2008
Fantastically puerile humour, well-worked ideas and clever one-liners make this sketch show a grubby little gem. Terrorism, syphilis, date rape and public masturbation are just a few of the topics it manages to make entertainingly silly. The gratuitous…
