Edinburgh Festival

Jay Richardson

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Interview: Comedian Vir Das at Edinburgh Festival

Interview: Comedian Vir Das at Edinburgh Festival

Household name in India brings show Walking On Broken Das to Fringe

9 Aug 2011

A Harvard graduate and gross-out film star, Vir Das is a household name in India. Jay Richardson met him on his home turf before he tests himself at the Fringe

Comedy and High Art

The Edinburgh Festival comedy shows incorporating High Art

Hannah Gadsby, The Horne Section, New Art Club and Vikki Stone

29 Jul 2011

Sean Lock once likened media coverage of comedians to that of strippers, none too respectful of something that involved divesting so much. Despite comedy’s current boom, scrutiny still tends to focus on comics’ television careers or transgressions…

Frisky and Mannish

Frisky and Mannish interview - Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011

Infectious pop parodies via the twisted side streets of camp cabaret

8 Jul 2011

It has often been remarked that in times of recession, we all seek reassurance from flamboyant pop parody duos. Hence the buzz around Frisky and Mannish's creation for the 2011 Fringe, Pop Centre Plus, which after School of Pop and The College…

Tom Green interview - Canadian comedian brings stand-up show to Edinburgh

Tom Green interview - Canadian comedian brings stand-up show to Edinburgh

Shock humour actor from internet show and Freddy Got Fingered

6 Jul 2011

When the bestiality-heavy, incest-evoking, gross-out cult Freddy Got Fingered won Worst Picture, Worst Actor, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay and Worst On-Screen Couple at the Golden Raspberry Awards, Tom Green became the first actor in history to…

Humphrey Ker is Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher!

Humphrey Ker is Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher!

Penny Dreadfuls' Humphrey Ker solo show at Edinburgh Fringe 2011

6 Jul 2011

With a title like Humphrey Ker is Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher!, you might imagine that his show is a Boche-bashing, Boy’s Own-style romp in which our hero takes on Hitler’s war machine. And you’d be right. But it’s also based on the real-life exploits…

Thom Tuck Goes Straight to DVD

Thom Tuck Goes Straight to DVD

Penny Dreadfuls' Thom Tuck's 2011 Edinburgh show examines Disney sequels

6 Jul 2011

Just as the emotional yearning of The Little Mermaid reinvigorated animated cinema on its release in 1989, Thom Tuck hopes his analysis of that movie’s follow-ups, plus various other Disney sequels, spin-offs and shameless House of Mouse cash-ins has a…

David Reed: Shamblehouse

David Reed: Shamblehouse

Penny Dreadfuls' David Reed brings solo show to Edinburgh Fringe 2011

6 Jul 2011

‘It’s not the best PR being called “the middle one”, is it? “The most castable one”? “The handsome one”, would you say? “The funny one” would be good, wouldn’t it?’ David Reed is giving his profile some thought. The Yorkshireman seems to have cynically…

Emily Woof at the Writer's Retreat

Emily Woof at the Writer's Retreat

The ex-actress conducts a deep involvement with language

6 Aug 2010

Emily Woof first graced Edinburgh nude and on a trapeze for a trilogy of one-woman Fringe plays, under the Sex umbrella. And throughout The Whole Wide Beauty (the debut novel by The Full Monty and Wondrous Oblivion star), the loss of physical expression…

Nicolai Lilin: author of Siberian Education

Nicolai Lilin: author of Siberian Education

The writer tells of his time in prison, tattooing, and film offers

5 Aug 2010

Handed his first weapon at the age of six, Nicolai Lilin was destined for a life of violence. Having fled the horrors of his past, he tells Jay Richardson why death is sometimes a better option. Born into a Siberian criminal dynasty, convicted of…

Neil Hamburger descends upon the Fringe with a surprise for his critics

Neil Hamburger descends upon the Fringe with a surprise for his critics

Controversial stand-up talks Tenacious D, hecklers and Mel Gibson

5 Aug 2010

With a characteristically phlegmy cough, Neil Hamburger clears his throat and recalls his last Scottish gig, opening for Tenacious D in Glasgow. ‘I sure got a lot off my chest there,’ he reminisces. ‘Though of course, they got even more off because they…

Top five late-night comedy shows at the Fringe 2010

Top five late-night comedy shows at the Fringe 2010

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

4 Aug 2010

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…

Sketch team Delete the Banjax return after success of 2009

Sketch team Delete the Banjax return after success of 2009

Word-of-mouth comedy hit of 2009 return for more

29 Jul 2010

‘We came up with a bit of a reputation and it just went off!’ recalls Sam Champion, in a pub similar to the Free Fringe Royal Mile watering hole where Delete the Banjax established themselves last year. ‘We loved doing the Free Fringe and agreed with…

Des Bishop tells his father's near miss story at Fringe 2010

Des Bishop tells his father's near miss story at Fringe 2010

Irish-American comic presents My Dad Was Nearly James Bond

29 Jul 2010

Des Bishop has wanted to tell his father’s story for a long time. The former model and actor, who had bit parts in Zulu and Day of the Triffids, narrowly lost out to George Lazenby for the role of James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. After…

Abandoman - Pic ‘n’ Mixtape

Abandoman - Pic ‘n’ Mixtape

Destined to be among the Fringe’s most popular draws, rapping improvisers Abandoman have to be seen

27 Jul 2010

‘It’s lovely when a hip hop audience sees us,’ says genial frontman Rob Broderick. ‘Two lads wander out, one with a guitar, the other with an Irish accent, and you can tell they’re thinking, “this is going to be a disaster”. But then we start and they…

The Swedish and Norwegian comics hitting the Edinburgh Fringe

The Swedish and Norwegian comics hitting the Edinburgh Fringe

Magnus Betnér, Dag Sørås and Lasse Nilsen head up Scandinavian invasion

16 Jul 2010

Magnus Betnér is leading a charge of the Swedish and Norwegian stand-ups playing the Fringe. Jay Richardson meets those who are raising the bar of north European comedy

Jazz Hans

Jazz Hans

The highly strung Dutch star Hans Teeuwen has quit comedy back home to bamboozle UK audiences

6 Aug 2009

In Holland, Hans Teeuwen is such a legendary entertainment figure that grown men imitate his comedy routines to the point of driving their daughters mad. Or at least that’s the plot of Just Hans, a forthcoming Dutch film in which Teeuwen appears as a…

Dave Gorman

Dave Gorman

A one-man innovative juggernaut going coast to coast

6 Aug 2009

Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure is ostensibly the story of a comedian travelling the world trying to establish disparate pairings of words that return just one hit in the search engine. ‘Essentially a show about me having a breakdown’, is how Gorman…

Clever Peter

Clever Peter

Rude sketch troupe sticking eggs into the appropriate baskets

24 Jul 2009

Despite a widely praised debut, the thrusting chaps of sketch troupe Clever Peter are back at the Fringe with greater ambition, tighter writing and less sexual gratuity, if not crudity. Dental torture and primate anal rape are the abiding memories of…

Edward Aczel

Edward Aczel

Solving the world’s woes in a pleasingly shambolic way

24 Jul 2009

Having performed essentially the same critically-acclaimed non-show for the last two years, anti-comic Edward Aczel is planning something a little different for this Fringe, as he ambitiously Explains All the World’s Problems … And Then Solves Them.

Out of the bag

Out of the bag - Dead Cat Bounce

They may have upset everyone at Mo Mowlam’s memorial gig but Dead Cat Bounce are now flying high

22 Jul 2009

If you’ve never actually met rock’n’roll sketch band Dead Cat Bounce, you could be forgiven for thinking that these guitar-wielding Dubliners occupy a place so far ahead of the curve that they’re on the outermost tip of the zeitgeist’s serrated edge.

Frank Skinner

Frank Skinner - ‘I always try to take the piss out of myself’

The comedian on his second memoir, On the Road

13 Jul 2009

The List: How do book readings compare to performing stand-up? Frank Skinner: Well, I select a couple of bits from the book, read a bit and then get interviewed by whoever they’ve got to interview me. Then I read some more. But the ones I’ve done so…

Mark Thomas

Campaign manager - Mark Thomas

The comic who matters brings democracy to the Fringe

13 Jul 2009

The origins of the apocryphal Chinese curse ‘may you live in interesting times’ are obscure. But for comedian and activist Mark Thomas, political instability, economic meltdown and the imminent collapse of Western civilisation can occasionally feel like…

Russell Howard

Russell Howard

Beat surrender

14 Aug 2008

Russell Howard can't resist a spot of testicular tomfoolery but, he tells Jay Richardson, his new act is less Buster Gonad than Jack Kerouac With his infectious, wide-eyed optimism currently offering a counterbalance to Frankie Boyle's unflinching…

Danny Wallace

Danny Wallace

Ghostbusters-obsessed yes man with another voyage of self-discovery

7 Aug 2008

The trailer for a Danny Wallace movie biopic might go something like this: ‘In a time of global terrorism, credit crunching and general fatigue with social networking sites, one committed tea drinker’s relentless optimism in the face of cynicism and…

Helen Fitzgerald

Helen Fitzgerald

Gruesome tales from Glasgow-based Aussie

7 Aug 2008

Currently writing her fourth thriller, ex-parole officer and social worker turned screenwriter Helen FitzGerald was in perpetual ‘movie development hell’, until her latest rejection prompted her to transform the story into a debut novel. ‘Dead Lovely…

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