Reviews & features: Mark Watson

Mark Watson: The Information

Another top show from the pointedly non-Welsh Fringe veteran

Ever since making his breakthrough on the Fringe in the mid-Noughties, Mark Watson’s ethos has remained constant: deliver solid, frequently hilarious stand-up amid an audience environment in which things can kick off at any moment. The more offbeat a…

Tim Key interview: the poet discusses Edinburgh, Alan Partridge and 'sexy baths'

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.

Edinburgh Comedy Award 2011 shortlist

Plus the 10 funniest jokes from the Fringe

The shortlist for the 2011 Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards have been announced. Nominations for best comedy show and for best newcomer. The winners will be announced on Saturday 27th August.

Comedy picks for the Edinburgh Fringe 2011

David O’Doherty Two shows this year from the beloved man of lo-fi musical comedy with the high-laugh quotient. His usual brilliant sit-down/stand-up fare, David O’Doherty is Looking Up, is augmented by his debut on the one-man comic play scene. Rory…

Top five late-night comedy shows at the Fringe 2010

Late ‘n’ Live, Lach’s Antihoot and Spank! deliver the goods past midnight

Late ‘n’ Live Still one of August’s hottest tickets, this booze-fuelled behemoth of a night retains less of the volatile anarchy of its Cowgate heyday. Nevertheless, it remains a tremendous opportunity to see some of the festival’s best comics in a…

Edinburgh festivals line-ups announced

Whatever your cultural poison, Edinburgh’s festival circuit has it covered

Five Pound Fringe - Edinburgh Fringe Festival

The Five Pound Fringe is new for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2009, so Anna Docherty takes a look at the highlights of this innovative budget option

Festival Books - Mark Watson

Eco-friendly, my dear Watson

According to Mark Watson, saving the planet would, at the very least, ‘look pretty smart on all our CVs’. With an already sterling comedy résumé, Watson takes on environmentalism in his latest book, Crap at the Environment, which through the author’s…

Mark Watson

Lightning fast, likeable wit from not quite Welsh wizard

Most 55-minute comedy shows, explains Mark Watson, use 50 minutes of material then allow five for laughter. But being a pessimist, the self-slagging, nervy wonderboy has prepared an hour. Based on audience reactions, the wiry, fake Welshman should have…

Best of the rest - Edinburgh Book Festival

Edinburgh International Book Festival

Philip Gourevitch. Having reported on the genocide in Rwanda, Gourevitch is back with a journey into the heart of America’s darkness as Standard Operating Procedure analyses the hell of Abu Ghraib. Steven Berkoff In town to direct On the Waterfront…

Hitlist - the best Festival comedy

Stewart Lee Making a mockery of his low placing as the 41st Best Stand-Up Ever, the co-writer of Jerry Springer: The Opera has had everyone making a song and dance about this year’s show. UdderBELLY’s Pasture, 0870 745 3083, until 27 Aug, 7.30pm…

Mark Watson

Mark Watson deserves his moment. Having proved to be one of the true innovators on the Fringe with his marathon comedy sessions, off-the-cuff novel writing and participation in daft quizzes, his solo hour of stand-up has grown in stature and scope in…

Hitlist - the best Festival comedy

Kristen Schaal Winston Churchill roamed the Assembly Rooms last year in the guise of Mel Smith. He’s back for a ghost appearance in this superb show from one of America’s most delicate new comic talents. Assembly Rooms, 623 3030, until 27 Aug (not 20)…