Edinburgh Festival

Jonny Ensall

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

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

Comedy Award winner brings his Masterslut show to the 2011 Fringe

21 Sep 2011

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.

Rory Sheridan's Tales of the Antarctica

Rory Sheridan's Tales of the Antarctica

David O’Doherty in very funny piece that risks becoming one-note in tone

(3 stars)30 Aug 2011

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…

The Pleasure of Being: Washing, Feeding, Holding

The Pleasure of Being: Washing, Feeding, Holding

A cure for loneliness?

(3 stars)26 Aug 2011

This one-on-one hotel room experience is Adrian Howells’ attempt at total care for a single audience member. It starts with a warm bath filled with rose petals. I undress and step in. ‘It’s my honour to bathe you,’ Howells says, with no hint of…

David O'Doherty

David O'Doherty is Looking Up

Immaculate content delivered with furious enthusiasm

(4 stars)19 Aug 2011

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.

May I Have the Pleasure . . . ?

May I Have the Pleasure . . . ?

Champagne, slow dancing and loneliness

(3 stars)19 Aug 2011

Adrian Howells is a warm and empathetic character and a captivating speaker. This helps to explain why he’s been picked to be a best man six times. However, in this one-man show he’s facing up to some cold facts. Like how, at 50 years old, he’s still…

The Pajama Men

The Pajama Men

Both brilliantly silly and brilliantly clever

(4 stars)19 Aug 2011

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

Josie Long: The Future Is Another Place

Stand up for the left

(3 stars)19 Aug 2011

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…

Futureproof

Futureproof

A fairly unshocking freak show

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

In the world of the freak show there is, Lynda Radley’s play informs us, a hierarchy. At the top are the ‘reals’ – people like bearded lady Countess Marketa (Irene Macdougall), Siamese twins Lillie and Millie (Ashley Smith and Nicola Roy, mirroring each…

Thom Tuck Goes Straight to DVD

Thom Tuck Goes Straight to DVD

Funny and heart-wrenching show on Disney films and painful break-ups

(4 stars)16 Aug 2011

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…

Hotel Medea

Hotel Medea

A killer night out

(5 stars)15 Aug 2011

Spend a whole night in the company of a murderer. See her history retold, eat with her, dance with her, bathe and clothe her, listen to her problems, understand them if you possibly can, and, ultimately, be party to her gruesome crime. This is the…

The Horne Section

The Horne Section

Toe-tapping jazz-and-comedy combo from Alex Horne and friends

(4 stars)15 Aug 2011

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.

Mark Thomas: Extreme Rambling (Walking the Wall)

Mark Thomas: Extreme Rambling (Walking the Wall)

Following a dangerous tourist trail

(4 stars)12 Aug 2011

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…

Lounge Room Confabulators

Lounge Room Confabulators

Aussie troubadours paying home visits

(4 stars)11 Aug 2011

‘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…

John Peel’s Shed

John Peel’s Shed

Intimate musings on the joy of radio

(3 stars)8 Aug 2011

In 2002 author John Osborne won a competition to write the best two-sentence description of John Peel’s radio show and win a box of the DJ’s records. ‘Songs you want to hear. Played by a man who wants you to hear them.’ earned Osborne the prize, and he…

Somewhere Beneath It All, A Small Fire Burns Still

Somewhere Beneath It All, A Small Fire Burns Still

Monologue that’s less than straightforward

(3 stars)8 Aug 2011

'This is true.’ Comedian Phil Nichol implores you to believe in his story midway through this experimental monologue, seemingly trying to inject a moment of clarity into a deliberately fractured and confusing play from Royal Court young writer Dave…

Nathan Dean Williams

Nathan Dean Williams

Twisted pick ‘n’ mix

(2 stars)8 Aug 2011

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.

Doris Day Can Fuck Off

Doris Day Can Fuck Off - Greg McLaren interview

2011 Edinburgh Festival show based on singing to strangers

26 Jul 2011

It’s a sunny Saturday in Stoke Newington, North London, and I’m competing in my very first ‘allotment Olympics’. Specifically, a shot putt event that swaps the usual metal balls for hefty, organic potatoes. The games have been organised by Stoke…

Lounge Room Confabulators

Lounge Room Confabulators perform 2011 Fringe show in your home

Edinburgh Festival Fringe duo bring their cabaret show to your house

20 Jul 2011

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

The shocking, rude and offensive highlights of the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe

The controversial shows of Edinburgh Fringe 2011

6 Jul 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

A Domino Records EIFF event seeks to show that the right song, over the right film, can be more than the sum of its parts

Domino Records host Edinburgh International Film Festival event

Event aims to showcase effective combination of music and film

27 May 2011

A good advert can, sometimes, sell more than jeans, or alcohol, or cars. Think of the 1999 number one song, 'Flat Beat', which gained enormous popularity after a puppet called Flat Eric danced to it in a Levi’s advert. Levi’s shifted their jeans, the…

EIFF Five to try: Reel Science

EIFF 2011 - Five to try: Reel Science

Our picks for the Edinburgh International Film Festival's outsider strands

27 May 2011

Oi! Get Your Grubby Hands out of My Brain A film-initiated debate about the growing commercial application of neuro-imaging, epigenetics and other futuristically-named brain technologies. Do you really want to know if you are going to pass on madness…

Rich Fulcher

Rich Fulcher

Smutty drag act comes on a little strong

(3 stars)24 Aug 2010

‘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…

It’s Always Right Now, Until It’s Later

It’s Always Right Now, Until It’s Later

Achingly beautiful stories from a normal bloke

(5 stars)19 Aug 2010

Daniel Kitson is a prodigiously talented comedian and storyteller. He’s also a normal guy. He announces himself normally, strolling onto the stage and thanking his audience for coming to such an early show (10am). He says he’s going to tell two stories…

Jimmy McGhie

Jimmy McGhie

A set of simple but funny observations

(3 stars)16 Aug 2010

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

Luke Toulson

Plenty of bonhomie, but not much els

(2 stars)16 Aug 2010

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…

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