Reviews & features: Brian Donaldson

Tom Chatfield talk on hidden educational power of video games

Pat Kane chairs Edinburgh Book Festival talk

By the end of 2008, the annual sales figure for video games was $40billion, outstripping the movie business by some way. Here’s another stat: 99% of teenage boys and 94% of teenage girls have played a video game. Tom Chatfield’s Fun Inc takes apart the…

The Penny Dreadfuls

Hard to see exactly what the mad fuss is about

It’s hard to see exactly what the mad fuss is about when it comes to this threesome. Now a staple Fringe act, the trio have laddered up the ranks from a cave in the Underbelly to the cheek-mic glory of Pleasance One in a short space of years. But the…

Seann Walsh

Making the humdrum hilarious

If you were to sit down and read a full synopsis of Seann Walsh’s debut hour, it might come across as the dullest thing ever. The subjects he takes as his inspiration for comedy would make Michael McIntyre seem like the merged resurrection of Bill Hicks…

Eirlys Bellin

Clichés abound and laughs fail

In the same cosy room in 2008, Isabel Fay presented a claustrophobic set of oddball characters who appeared with a bang before fizzling out all too quickly. The same is true of Eirlys Bellin’s show, Unaccustomed As I Am, in which a quartet of irritants…

Daniel Rigby

A ragbag of facial gymnastics and titbits about ghosts

The life of a born-again Christian who lapsed back into the world of reason sounds like the stuff that Fringe epics are made from. But after a solid beginning, Rigby’s Afterbirth dips badly, with not even the little baby Jesus capable of resurrecting…

The Three Englishmen

This might be as good as it gets

First off, there’s actually four of them, though they do all appear to be all of an Anglo bent. Kicking off with a deftly wordless piece about four Brazilians watching the World Cup, the quartet rattle through scenes about accidental infant-theft and an…

Monster of the Deep 3D

An amiable and tight performance

Claudia O’Doherty is a quirky little fish. Her show brings to mind the type of bonkers shenanigans which Bridget Christie gets up to, where a world is created almost out of scratch, infiltrated by rigorous detail and manically explored to highlight the…

Dag Sørås

Sørås makes hilarious hay

At the end of Magnus Betnér’s Stand show, the Swede implores his audience to hang around for his best friend and ‘the better comedian’, Norway’s Dag Sørås. The pair certainly share some common themes (suicide, religion, the right wing) while both are…

Carl Donnelly

Getting his stand-up craft down to a fine art

Being famous is not on Carl Donnelly’s wishlist. Besides, the press now have some pictures of him looking a bit daft filed in their archive, ready to be plucked out at the moment when he attains true celebrityhood and does something shameful. For now…

Barry & Stuart

A hell of a compelling show

Whether you believe The Sandman exists or not – and having him call my name through the medium of a lady plucked ‘randomly’ from the crowd hasn’t made me sleep especially easy these last few nights – the Aberdeenshire boys still put on a hell of a…

The Sunday Defensive

Decent-enough chemistry

You might not look at a block of Red Leicester again after this hour in the company of two men in glasses performing as themselves and their dads. A decent-enough chemistry abounds between Phil Gilbert and Jacob Edwards as they wonder how to tell loved…

Charlyne Yi

Don’t believe the hype

The Assembly Rooms like their north American female comics to be a bit kooky. Maria Bamford and Kristen Schaal have mined an offbeat seam to glory at this venue over the last few years, but Charlyne Yi doesn’t quite have what it takes to follow fully in…

Jennifer Coolidge

A CV full of amusing titbits

Tottering on stage in a tight blue dress and heels that are usually only seen on the Fringe at burlesque cabarets or ladyboys gigs, Jennifer Coolidge is here to tell us that she is sick of LA. Hell, she might even decamp to the UK. Implausible as that…

Roddy Doyle set for two events at Edinburgh Book Festival

He may be one of Ireland’s greatest living writers, but Roddy Doyle is someone who cares not for being trapped into a single generic pigeonhole as his two events at Charlotte Square Gardens prove. In one, he discusses the history of modern Ireland…

Bo Burnham

How can a guy with an organ be so good?

On the back of outlandishly glowing reviews from the heavyweight papers and keeping his expectant crowd waiting nearly half an hour after the start-time, it would be easy for the cynic to dismiss Bo Burnham. Maybe after all he’s just an over-hyped teen…

Emily Mackie

Delving into some dark places

One of the most talked-about British debuts of 2010 was Emily Mackie’s And This is True. It featured a 15-year-old boy Nevis and his author dad Marshall who carried on their passive existence living in and out of a white Ford Transit van. Since his…

Caroline Rhea

Flirting with fame and audience patience

When Sarah Silverman played London in 2008, there was much outrage when she clocked off for a heavily-priced event some 40 minutes in. Last year, Carol Leifer, the inspiration for Seinfeld’s Elaine, graced the Fringe by reading straight from reams of A4…

Dommett & Lapaert

Material tossed aside for engaging tomfoolery

The bubbling confidence of manic youthery shines through this knockabout gig as Joel Dommett and Eric Lampaert take turns in undermining the other’s half-hour(ish) set. Sending slickness home for the night with a tenner in its back pocket, this is a…

Delete The Banjax

Hyped foursome not quite there yet

Having won over the crowds at last year’s Free Fringe, much was expected of Delete the Banjax with this, their debut paid-for August show. But as much as the quartet try, and boy do they try hard, their Pappy-like mucking-about and wild-eyed enthusiasm…

Matthew Hardy: Willy Wonka Explained

Nostalgic trip back to a time of Veruca Salt and Everlasting Gobstoppers

When Australian comedian Matthew Hardy reached a low point in his life, he turned to the movies for solace. He would often be caught in his underpants with a tinny in one hand and a remote in the other, watching the original Willy Wonka film; in…

Mark Nelson - Offending the Senses

A jolt to the comedy system

Armed with a stage presence that makes Wil Hodgson appear as hyper as any of the comedy Russells, Mark Nelson has opted to simply be a cracking joke-teller. And ultimately, in a Fringe packed to their mainly low rafters with weak concept shows…

5 Questions - Nora Chassler

Reviewing her debut novel last year, we described Nora Chassler as ‘a distinctive new voice’. Here, she responds by taking on our Q&A...

5 Questions - Rhod Gilbert

Rhod Gilbert is popping our way for a week of The Cat That Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst.

Conor O’Toole

Some good joke-writing

Since making a disappointing Fringe debut here in front of an audience of two reviewers, this young Irish comic is doing the right thing and spending time at shows of more experienced stand-ups. While he has acres to learn about delivery and presence…

Bec Hill

An endearing quirkiness

Stand-up doesn’t get more mixed bag than this. In this show from the perky Aussie about the downsides of growing up, there are a couple of gags that shouldn’t have even reached the strangled-at-birth stage. Yet, there’s an endearing quirkiness about…