Mark Edmundson

The Love of a Clown

Clever combination of sentimental storytelling and traditional clown

23 Aug 2010

A clever combination of sentimental storytelling and traditional clown performance makes this show, overall, a very pleasant experience. The love struck star of the show is Jacques Raouso, am ageing clown who is reaching the end of his career on the…

Sarah Bennetto

Rarely sparks hilarity

24 Aug 2009

An early show and intimate venue work against confessional tales that cry out for a little hubbub to soak up the fluctuations in pitch and smooth over some of the timing. Aussie Bennetto's golden ticket endeavours thus often ring true but rarely spark…

Daniel Rigby

Frenzied and wilfully bizarre one-man character sketch show

24 Aug 2009

Despite the musical pieces proving fresh and genuinely funny, there is something classically British about Rigby's frenzied and wilfully bizarre character sketch show. The forceful pace brings a certain shambolic charm to proceedings; indeed we could…

Fredrik Lloyd

Blessed with neither presence nor charisma

24 Aug 2009

You can see what Lloyd was aiming for with this unlikely account of bionic boy turned super featherweight cage fighter. He's meant to represent, rather than actually embody, a deluded waif holding court with tall tales and a YouTube fixation, but the…

Sammy J: 1999

Swapping puppets for pubescence

20 Aug 2009

Melbourne’s smutty answer to Andrew Lloyd Webber returns with a tongue-in-cheek one-man musical set in the run-up to the millennium. With explicit references to the Y2K bug, Tamagotchis and Toy Story 2, he’s swapped puppeteer partner Heath McIvor (with…

Sam Simmons

Lacking in spontaneity but his methods are inventive

19 Aug 2009

For his Fringe debut, the Australian puts his all into a song-and-goof show about the things you find down the back of the sofa. His absurdist observations may be lacking in spontaneity but his methods are inventive and being from the ‘if in doubt…

Rosie Wilby

Wry and naughty

18 Aug 2009

Like a cool, knowing family friend or easy-on-the-eye Claire Rayner, the affable Wilby leads this homely class in love, sex and relationships. Wry and naughty, Wilby’s wont is rapport over bluster, as she kindly takes the audience into her bosom…

Ava Vidal

A refreshingly laidback, conversational style

18 Aug 2009

Having made brief forays onto the goggle box, it is a surprise to find Vidal tucked away in front of a modest audience. Race and gender material delivered in a refreshingly laidback, conversational style makes for a cosy but hardly memorable set and…

Charlie Chuck

A rare audience with original comedy nutjob

16 Aug 2009

Did anyone else bury deep the memory of Charlie Chuck’s shambolic, barking contributions to the careers of Reeves and Mortimer? As the familiar hangdog horror drifts stage-wards, one is struck by the realisation that you’re all paying to spend an hour…

Rodge Glass

Analysing icons of football and fiction

14 Aug 2008

‘Faith is something that preoccupies me, definitely, but it is usually the lack of it,’ says Rodge Glass, the Glasgow-based Jewish author of No Fireworks and Hope for Newborns who passed through a staggering range of variously religious, private and…

Take A Whiff of . . . Turpentine

23 Aug 2007

In an age of the supreme surrealist banter of the Mighty Boosh and twisted tales of The League of Gentlemen, the staged interplay between John Canfield and Richard Hutchison seems somewhat tired and awfully tame. The sketch-driven duo is at pains to…

As You Were

23 Aug 2007

Packing them in for their observational stand-up, tag-team Roger Hailes and Todd Womack and have caused quite a stir with a simple comedy club format, welcoming an alternative Fringe guest each night (on this occasion the sublimely smutty guitar duo…

Marina Lewycka

16 Aug 2007

Marina Lewycka’s debut A History of Tractors in Ukrainian won over hearts and minds with a witty and largely autobiographical tale of a long settled immigrant family clashing over the encroaching senility of its obsessive and stubbornly romantic head.

Rebus McTaggart

16 Aug 2007

Ecclefechan’s one-man law spree returns with a new set with the plaudits from last year’s Fringe having gone straight to Rebus McTaggart’s head. Happily, the same couldn’t be said of character comic Richard Thomson. Presenting a similar premise to the…

Ivor Dembina

Free fun with a lewd slant

9 Aug 2007

Those looking for some high-minded cultural reference may not get the tagline for Ivor Dembina’s show: Jewish Comedy: Free At Last. If truth be told, the veteran Jewish comic has something of a penchant for the age-old anti-Semitic stereotype of the…

Daniel Townes

9 Aug 2007

This charming London-based Aussie’s set is built loosely around his detention and deportation from an LA airport for an apparently negligible misdemeanour, an encounter that offers him some considerable mileage. With the air of one of your funnier pals…

Planet B-boy

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jul 2007

Think breakdancing died out in the 80s? Think again, says Mark Edmundson as he talks to Benson Lee, the writer-director of Planet B-boy which charts its epic resurgence