Reviews & features

Return of the Close Up Magician

Phenomenal close-hand tricks from a consummate performer

Close-hand magician Lewis Barlow is a likeable performer. Unlike Derren Brown and his ilk, Barlow creates a show where magic is not swamped by the overbearing personality of the performer, but rather one where magic takes the centre stage. Beginning…

Wil Hodgson: Kidnapped by Catwoman

A personal history of sexual turn ons

With The Dark Knight Rises ruling the box office this summer, Wil Hodgson has chosen a timely crush for the title of his new confessional comedy show on kinks, turn-ons and fantasies. As it turns out, he’s more interested in the 60s Adam West-era feline…

The Great Puppet Horn

Shadow puppetry show that leaves the comedy in another room

The Great Puppet Horn showed a devilish side recently by using their vast shadow puppet skills to project an image of Stewart Lee onto Edinburgh Castle. It was not an act of idolatry towards the agitprop comic, but the Horn guys were expressing their…

Comedian Dies in the Middle of Joke

Unusual Fringe play in which the comedian keeps on dying

It’s November 1983 and Britain is in turmoil. Ruled over by the Tories, the country is still reeling from participation in a war that no one can properly justify and the charts are full of bland drivel. Sound familiar? In a dingy London comedy club, the…

Rick Shapiro - Rebirth

The tragedy of Shapiro’s story means there is little to laugh at

It has always been strange to witness the tragedy at the heart of successful comedy. Voyeurism, schadenfreude, even embarrassment are tools of the audience when watching comics bear their soul for laughs. With Rick Shapiro however, there really is…

Gravity Boots

Crashing down to earth with a massive bump

Making surreal humour work is probably the hardest trick to pull off in the comedy arena. Nail it and you will go a very long way; mess up and you just make a complete tit of yourself. Adelaide absurdists Gravity Boots do their best to be as weird as…

Xavier Toby - Binge Thinking

Comedy addressing big ideas let down by whistle-stop rhetoric and poor material

Toby relates the tale of a dinner party with three old male friends held after he returned from travelling. In that time they've all got married and Toby is unimpressed with how they've changed and with their choices in wives. For a while it's seventies…

The Silky Pair

A few sketches hit the mark, but feels cobbled together

Female duo The Silky Pair sells sketches and songs from their comedy shop. Punters have the chance to buy complete routines including outfits and hand gestures. It's a conceptual comedy cliché that's as old as The Two Ronnies but that doesn't mean it…

Tim FitzHigham - Stop the Pigeon

Grandiose storytelling from likeable madman

Stemming from the modern take on epic storytelling made popular in the noughties by Dave Gorman and Danny Wallace types, FitzHigham’s gimmick relies on accepting silly bets: if you engineer a ridiculous situation, your Fringe show will come. William…

KWAT

Wordy sketch show of varying quality

Formerly known as Quattro Formaggio, the more easily digestible KWAT is a slightly more mature sketch group than most seen at the Fringe. This cerebral show recalls the work of former Perrier Best Newcomers The Consultants. And, like them, this literate…

Mark Restuccia - How to Succeed at Internet Dating

Step 1: Don’t follow the example set here

It makes sense that Mark Restuccia’s debut solo show at the Fringe is a ‘How To…’. The format is safe and straightforward, offering clear structure and allowing for plenty of easy punch lines. Throw in a handy PowerPoint to supply images and videos, and…

Thomas Nelstrop - Great(ish) Hits

Fast-paced multi-character stand-up show

Thomas Nelstrop's central conceit is a demanding one: to play every single character in a one man show called In a Field, set at a music festival. He runs about, sometimes playing his guitar, sometimes not and performing a mixture of made up characters…

Elis James - Speaking As a Mother …

A gathering of bad experiences in a charming and disorganised show

Apologising to his fans, Elis James warns he’s changed style from his usual long-form storytelling to observational comedy because he wants to buy a house. It’s a lie. From an hilarious opening story about the worst gig in his life, to being…

Abandoman - Party in the Key of C Major

Sharp hip hop comedy improv from highly acclaimed duo

Hip hop meets jokes meets improv in a mad mash-up from Abandoman, who are wildly popular right now having supported the diverse likes of Tommy Tiernan and Ed Sheeran, as well as selling out previous Fringe runs. So perhaps hopes are unfairly high for…

Shirley and Shirley Unleashed

A sassy and inventive tour de force from the sketch comedy twosome

The opening skit of the latest Shirley adventure features two Edinburgh ladies hunched under an umbrella pondering whether to see the show having heard it's all 'cock' 'fanny' and arsehole' with lots of 'bad accents.' It's true that almost every sketch…

Leigh Warren + Dancers - Breathe/Impulse

The choreographer bringing his 'group of individuals' to Edinburgh International Festival

In some dance companies you have soloists and principals, in others everybody is on the same level. But rarely are company members described as ‘a group of individual dance artists’, as they are on the Leigh Warren website. When he started his company…

Miriam Margolyes - Dickens' Women

Appealing biographical show in the company of a true pro

Yelling with that unmistakeable voice and accompanied by the oh-so-refined tinkly piano of Benjamin Lee, Miriam Margolyes staggers onto the stage in the person of sozzled layer-out of the dead Mrs Gamp, from Martin Chuzzlewit. It’s a charming, gentle…

Phil Nichol Rants!

Mercurial Canadian comedian rages, blusters, fumes and seethes

The hard-working, hyperactive Fringe veteran, who’s also appearing in his Comedians Theatre Company production of the play The Intervention, can hardly contain everything he wants to say within this single hour of stand-up. And he doesn’t. Before the…

Fork - Electro Vocal Circus

PVC-clad a capella group covering pop classics

The four-piece a cappella group from Finland return. Fork’s look and repertoire is much more glam rock than Glee, with one member being labelled as the ‘Legolas from hell’. They have an ever so slightly intimidating presence, but this only adds to their…

Sound & Fury's Doc Faustus

Comedy troupe deliver a low-quality western pastiche of the famous morality tale

When you first read, or saw an adaptation of, Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, was your first thought: ‘it’s okay but what it really needs is more cowboys’? If you did Sound and Fury have answered your prayers with a country and western take on the…

Bob Downe . . . Smokin'

Style over substance

From the minute he pirouettes onto stage all 70s gear, mega-watt grin and fake blonde hair, it’s clear Aussie’s ‘clown prince of polyester’ is having a ball, as he knocks out one karaoke hit after another and embarks on some name-that-tune competitions.

Born to be Mild

Likeable cynic's references fall flat

Lawyer turned comedian and general Mr nice guy Andrew Watts accepts that much of the material in his past shows has surrounded himself and his life as a single man. Recently though, Watts has managed to become romantically involved and despite a deep…

Rhys Darby, Sean Hughes and more share their fest highlights

Some final Fringe recommendations from performers including Billy the Mime and Chris Ramsey

Rhys Darby Find of the festival for me was Two Cornish Rappers and a Casiotone from Hedluv and Passman. It is the perfect Fringe show: lo-fi technology mixed with hi-fi dancing. If Murray Hewitt was here he would certainly be approaching them about…

Comedian Simon Evans lets us in on a couple of his favorite Fringe things

I have two favourite things about the Fringe. 1) Serendipity I did my first Set List, where comedians are required to improvise material straight off the bat, based on random phrases. I had to speak about ‘Eulogy Headliner’, and said that this was…

My Shrinking Life - Alison Peebles' MS-themed show

Alison Peebles' first MS theatre piece will feature dancers and is directed by Belgian Lies Pauwels

Scotland has the highest levels of multiple sclerosis in the world, and one of the country’s most high profile sufferers is lauded actress, writer and director Alison Peebles. Peebles, who’s won acclaim in the past for her portrayal of Lady Macbeth and…