Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghBulletproof set-pieces exploring the theme of cultural identity confirm this Bostonian as a talent to watchAlex Edelman won the best newcomer gong at last year'…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:34AM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Summerhall, EdinburghIt may not by very funny, but the standup and activist's vehement, animated piece about the privatisation of public spaces certainly has a lot of convictionPicking up wh…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:30AM[SHARE]Gilded Balloon, EdinburghOptimistic and less militant than in the past, the standup makes a welcome return to the fringe. Unfortunately, it's with raw, under-rehearsed material"I was emotion…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:08AM[SHARE]A Desert Island Discs spoof, brooding circus performers who strip naked and a Yoko Ono-inspired love-fest … our critics choose their hot tickets at this year's fringeO No!In less skilled h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:49AM[SHARE]Monday, August 17, 2015
Comedian Sam Simmons's rant against 'relatable' comics in his Edinburgh show does both him and the festival a disserviceAussie absurdist Sam Simmons is one of the best-loved comedians on the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:42PM[SHARE]Gilded Balloon, EdinburghNo stage frippery required " this comedy trio are strong enough to stand on their own, with sharp writing and some fine skewering of middle-class moresIt takes confi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:07AM[SHARE]Sunday, August 16, 2015
Assembly George Square, EdinburghWith its explorations of identity, Mark Steel's account of how he traced his birth parents is astonishingWhen the story is extraordinary and the comic's main…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:31AM[SHARE]Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghIn Lolly, her first fringe solo show, the up-and-coming comedian introduces many personas with varying degrees of success, but is never short of charismaFrom Ca…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:31AM[SHARE]Saturday, August 15, 2015
Laughing Horse @ The Free Sisters, EdinburghThe Man Down star delivers a neurotic, convoluted tale of a stowaway cat that channels the Basil Fawlty archetype of the beleaguered EnglishmanTwo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:37AM[SHARE]Banshee Labyrinth, EdinburghWaiting for Gaddot, which enlists Ben Target and Ian Smith in the tale of a love rivalry amid a collapsing gig, could be the underground comedy hit of the fringeI…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:30AM[SHARE]Friday, August 14, 2015
From the attractively impish Matt Winning to the pitch-perfect puerility of Gein's Family Giftshop, here are seven festival sets I haven't managed to write about yetOne week down, two to go.…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:37PM[SHARE]Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThere's no one better at constructing a show than Acaster " and half the fun is how emphatically he addresses vanishingly small subjectsSerial award-nominee Jam…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:20AM[SHARE]Sneaky Pete's, EdinburghThe audience are treated for head lice and a grandad plays chicken with his life-support machine in a show that explores a whole spectrum of strangeEcole Philippe Gau…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:09AM[SHARE]Thursday, August 13, 2015
The festival's comedians were historically young, gifted and white. Now, shows by black and minority ethnic acts are popular, diverse and nothing to do with skin colour"Diversity in the arts…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:55PM[SHARE]Gilded Balloon, EdinburghBea is an energetic storyteller with charm to spare but she's going through the motions a bit with these observations about shame and confidenceMost comics perform h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:58AM[SHARE]The Stand, EdinburghRyan excels at the barbed comedy of supercilious abuse in a disjointed set that riffs on the Taylor Swift/Nicki Minaj row and has a standout section on Bill CosbyReported…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:25AM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Wherever you look at the festival, comedians are unselfconsciously rocking the mic. Critic Brian Logan joins the party …Cue hip-hop beat. Middle-aged, middle-class, white comedy critic try…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:37PM[SHARE]Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghPart musical comedy, part doomed romance and part Desert Island Discs, this is an eccentric, subversive work about the soundtrack to a life Joseph Morpurgo migh…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:09AM[SHARE]Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghKumar directs his intelligence and moral fury toward race, privatisation and oppressed capitalists " and comes out triumphantAnother day, another article in a r…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Standups relish language and forms of communication, so it's no wonder emojis are a feature of so many shows this year. But how much can you really say with yellow symbols?The Edinburgh frin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:01PM[SHARE]The Stand, EdinburghThe fringe superstar returns with a mostly uproarious, sometimes sobering set in response to social injustices of every hueIs it a show? Is it a book launch? Fringe super…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:30AM[SHARE]The Tron, EdinburghThe anarchic member of sketch trio Pappy's lets loose in an irrepressible and mischievous " but non-trivial " celebration of fancy dress and funFans of the sketch troupe P…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:24AM[SHARE]Monday, August 10, 2015
Underbelly Cowgate, EdinburghThe comedian is impressive as her sexist alter ego Dave, but the brand of chauvinist comedy depicted makes for a fairly soft target"I mostly hang out with comedi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:44PM[SHARE]Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe standup's festival return sees him get serious about the state of racial politics, while retaining his keen sense of sillyEnjoyable though it was, there was…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:34AM[SHARE]Sunday, August 9, 2015
Pleasance DomeThough sadly not living up to the promise of their 2014 fringe debut, this comedy trio are still an impressive and endearing actThe month of previews, the week to break in your…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:31AM[SHARE]Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe comedy threesome play off their incongruous personae to create an odd, slippery and exhilarating show of extreme slapstick and fresh, uneasy jokes Recently …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:33AM[SHARE]Saturday, August 8, 2015
Gilded Balloon, EdinburghTruscott has some funny, transgressive material but technical glitches and a lack of polish undermines the flow of this performanceNot many acts enter fringe legend …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:47AM[SHARE]Laughing Horse @ The Free SistersWilliams tiptoes around outright bleakness as he adds relationship angst to his ideological distress in another exciting Edinburgh showLast year's show was c…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:52AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 30, 2015
There are spirited and charismatic performances in the Muju Crew's cross-cultural sketch show " as well as the occasional lapse into bad tasteRamadan as a fitness programme ("I lost 30lb in …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:07AM[SHARE]Saturday, July 18, 2015
Huge crowds for sets by Tim Key, Dylan Moran and others show how popular comedy is at music festivals; no wonder standup was spilling out all over the site this yearAs a symbol of how comedy…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:21PM[SHARE]Friday, July 17, 2015
Comedy is growing out of pubs and arenas, and making inroads into respected arts festivals " but could it lose its edge as a result?Interesting times for comedy fans: we're watching an artfo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:52AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
