Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Assembly George SquareGlenn Wool has been given a hero's welcome on his return to Edinburgh after a three-year absence. I don't quite share the clamorous enthusiasm with which some have gree…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:20PMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghAged 10, Isy Suttie released a balloon from her garden, with a plea for a pen pal inside. She hoped it would reach Australia – but instead, it reached 25-year…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:15PMMonday, August 22, 2011
Pleasance CourtyardJigsaw are three standups gathered to perform full-pelt sketch comedy. You'll see better acting in the primary school nativity, and there's zero experiment with sketch-sho…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMSunday, August 21, 2011
Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghHalf the comedians in Edinburgh are performing in Portakabins – or worse. Might as well make a virtue out of necessity. And so, Henry Paker has set his show i…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:04AMFriday, August 19, 2011
Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe liveliest moments in newcomer James Acaster's show are supplied by the audience. At the performance I see, he is accused by a woman in the third row of bein…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:36PMThursday, August 18, 2011
Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghOne-third of the sketch troupe Penny Dreadfuls, Humphrey Ker uses his first solo show to tell a tale of second world war derring-do, in a style that fans of Com…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:45PMEICC, EdinburghFew authors could label a book-reading session as comedy and sell out five nights at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Yet David Sedaris can, and the event – a …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:43PMFlight of the Conchords they're not – but this musical comic duo win game, set and match when it comes to cheeky charmThe shtick: Anyone for Tennis? – two Melbourne lads anatomising in r…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:05AMWednesday, August 17, 2011
Assembly George Square, EdinburghPerhaps it's against the spirit of a variety night to crave less variety. But – as with their Edinburgh comedy award-nominated 2008 show – I left Hot Tub…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:50PMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghA butler welcomes the audience at the start of Tom Rosenthal's show, separating us into haves and have-nots with a velvet rope. Rosenthal – son of TV sports r…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:44PMBrian Logan explores different types of improvisation on the Edinburgh fringe, and takes a Chaucerian workshop with the 'hard bardic' group The School of NightHe meets the Phill Jupitus Quar…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:31AMTuesday, August 16, 2011
Pleasance CourtyardAs if the double-act relationship weren't complicated enough, along comes Toby – real-life sisters Sarah and Lizzie Daykin – with their show Lucky to add a delicious n…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:15PMGilded Balloon, EdinburghYou can't say Australian duo Aamer Rahman and Nazeem Hussain aren't up to the minute. Their show, Fear of a Brown Planet, starts with weeks-old news footage in which…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:14PMThis trio of Footlights graduates have the personality, sketches and style to prosper, once they stop following the herd …The shtick: Three erudite young chaps do sketches, and then do the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:26AMMonday, August 15, 2011
Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghRussell Kane thinks he has a problem. In the shows that marked Kane's ascent to the higher rungs of standup, his tyrannical dad loomed large. Now he's …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:00PMPleasance CourtyardImran Yusuf arrived under the radar on last year's fringe, performing a free show in preparation for a crack at the big time in 2011. But the big time wouldn't wait: Yusuf…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:14AMSunday, August 14, 2011
Pleasance DomeI never expected Tim Key to remind me of La Clique. That circus show's signature image was ropes act David O'Mer swooping sexily in and out of a bath, spurting water over the c…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PMFriday, August 12, 2011
Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghSome comics have to go out and find the funny; Hannibal Buress lets the comedy come to him. You won't find a more laidback act than this 28-year-old standup, kn…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:55PMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghLate Night Gimp Fight promise "comedy that will leave you feeling violated" – and at last year's fringe, some found their gross-out sketches in poor taste. I …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:55PMThis Canadian comic charms the audience with her cheerful and smart standup, a ukulele and extra 'bonus' materialThe shtick: Nerdy but perky Canadian comic DeAnne Smith talks lesbianism and …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:00AMThursday, August 11, 2011
Comedian Alexei Sayle got heckled by his 90-year-old mother, who calls his memoirs 'a pack of lies', so it's no mystery where he gets his tireless revolutionary fury fromAlexei Say…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:00PMGilded Balloon, EdinburghIt has been almost 20 years since Harry Hill won the Perrier comedy award, but his spirit is stalking this year's fringe in a hilariously batty new show by Sam Simmo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:55PMWednesday, August 10, 2011
Australian comedians Aamer Rahman and Nazeem Hussain are finding Scotland a tough place to do RamadanAccording to their publicity, Aamer Rahman and Nazeem Hussain are fasting throughout the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:30PMUnderbelly, EdinburghThere's no Doctor Brown onstage for the first 10 minutes of his new show Becaves – and when he does make his presence felt, it's thrashing invisibly behind the curtain…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:15PMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghSmoke billows from the theatre door. Heavy-metal music blares. A figure lumbers through the darkness, his name picked out in fairylights on his chest: Helm. Dar…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:53PMTuesday, August 9, 2011
Pleasance DomeThe election of the Tory-led coalition "has made me a much worse comedian", says Josie Long. She used to write about the human condition; now she's so angry, she can only talk …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:45PMBenny Boot, aka President Walter Montgomery, cheerfully shares the secrets of comedy. Good cheer/beer an essential ingredientThe shtick: Gigglesome Aussie comic and his "President of Standup…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:43AMThe Stand Comedy Club, EdinburghIt's been 10 years since Phill Jupitus performed standup, and there are moments in his new fringe show when you worry for his match fitness. Cliches muster, t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:44AMMonday, August 8, 2011
A raft of sketch-show comedians in Edinburgh are going it alone as standups this year. But are they in for a rude awakening? Brian Logan finds out if they've got what it takesWe never got to…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:30PMAssembly George SquareFrom innocence to experience, the cast of last year's series of the US reality show Dancing with the Stars ran the full gamut. In one corner, sexual abstinence campaign…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PMSunday, August 7, 2011
'Most people conclude it's Looney Tunes time when Ed's around," says Edward Aczel halfway through his show. Spoken by any other comic, that would sound entirely credible. But spoken by Aczel…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:01PM 
