Monkey Barrel Comedy, EdinburghDean’s great skill is to make the audience feel like intimate confidantes, but sometimes his impatience to get to the next laugh weakens the shtick It’s a …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:42AMFrom Liz Kingsman’s ‘messy woman’ send-up to Seann Walsh’s memories of his off-screen Strictly kiss, the nine-strong shortlist is a triumph for diversity though not without glaring o…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:03PMSamira Wiley makes her UK stage debut, there’s an urgent counter to antisemitism, plus a fourth King James, refugee dancers and comedic returns Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:33AMThey are the shock troops of comedy, pranksters who risk arrest and worse to ridicule the powerful. As two acclaimed practitioners – including the man who threw Nazi golfballs at Trump –…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:48PMUnderbelly, EdinburghOutlandish physical antics and a spontaneous stage presence keep Wardeh’s audience laughing as he clowns through a cast of oddball characters Clown is in vogue again, …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:49PMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghHoult hangs up the dress and luvvie cadences of his fringe-staple alter ego Anna Mann in a camp, silly yet surprisingly emotional show When a character comic bi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:48PMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghWilson relives her tumultuous turn as a teenage talent show contestant armed with laughter and song, topped with a touching tribute to her plucky younger self �…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:33PMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghOkatsuka’s slightly incapable, slightly on-edge persona is a fun time, whose yarn about an intruder frames material on marriage, mental illness and migration …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:42PMMonkey Barrel Comedy, EdinburghThe answer may seem obvious but the commanding comic’s fringe debut eschews any clear structure with mixed results Back in 2020, Thanyia Moore was planning h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:33AMThe Mash House, EdinburghThe New Jersey comic mines his lineage for laughs in a pensive dispatch from cosa nostra America (or somewhere nearby) The “dead dad” show is a fringe comedy cli…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:18AMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghMaturity has made the awkward standup more at ease with himself and lent heft and fruitful battle-scarring to his shtick It’s a feature of standup that comedy…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:54AMGilded Balloon, EdinburghSherman’s show, pitched between anti-comedy, performance art and body horror, leaves no doubt why she’s also known as Sarah Squirm Delightfully weird, says the p…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:24AMAssembly George Square, EdinburghPart observational, part autobiographical, The Real Hero in All This considers life from ever-surprising angles Sixteen years in Malaysia, 16 in the UK. Thi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:37AMGilded Balloon, EdinburghAdam has lots to say – about proposals, weddings, football and houseplants – and delivers it with puppyish pleasure There are worse qualities to bring to standup…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:03PMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghFrom jokes about men’s waning dominance to a teary anecdote, this show runs through a range of emotions on a post-breakup journey Wanna feel weird? Try star-r…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:42AMGilded Balloon, EdinburghIn his debut fringe show OK Zoomer, the 22-year-old comic bounces between optimism and fatalism, delivering gags with a sly twinkle Gen Z’ers have every reason to …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:54PMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe Mischief Theatre regular delivers routines to fit the audience’s requests before heading down a darker path in an uneven show “You can’t please everyo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:18PMThe festival is in full swing with audiences crammed into comedy clubs. But is our global pandemic the elephant in the room? Comedian Sam Nicoresti starts his show with an elaborate sanitisi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:12AMQuestions of free speech offer no simple answers, but it’s clear that this is a watershed moment in comedy If we don’t defend free speech, we live in tyranny. That’s the tenor of the c…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:54AMIt’s a form of comedy that has fallen out of favour with TV, but a trio of fun acts are keeping the sketch flame alive One of the pleasures of the fringe is checking in with standups as th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:12AMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghA gang of New Zealand comics and their very special guests become Elvis impersonators, hobbits and chimney sweeps in a fun fringe night Great was the excitement…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:12AMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghMischief Theatre are up to their old tricks as silly slapstick meets telepathy in a send-up of stage mentalism Stage mentalism – the world of Derren Brown and…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:48PMMonkey Barrel @ The Hive, EdinburghThe endearing comic’s Edinburgh debut is a riotously inventive show that blurs notions of race, gender and disability You could call Lara Ricote’s Edi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:54PMUnderbelly, George Square, EdinburghIn her show All Change Please it’s marriage, not politics, that’s at the heart of the Mash Report satirist’s finest jokes Rachel Parris always knew …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:54PMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghAdam Meggido’s play finds the teenage Johnson starring in Shakespeare’s tragedy and gives a taste of his future leadership Out of his depth as a tragedy unf…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:12AMAssembly George Square, EdinburghDebut show directed by Jordan Brookes sees Will Rowland and Eddy Hare deliver a familiar odd-couple turn with freshness “The UK’s lowest energy double ac…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:48AMPleasance Dome, EdinburghBrokentalkers theatre company and feminist comic Adrienne Truscott joyfully burlesque the ugliness of machismo in art and in life The great male artist may soon be o…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:24PMStand New Town theatre, EdinburghMaking her fringe standup debut after blazing a trail through modelling and activism, Olumide has some promising material but it fails to come together Fashi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:54AMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghIn her show The Woman’s Hour, the viral comedy star offers caricatures of burbling backbenchers and a woke-bashing TV host In the darkness of our political mo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:07PMMonkey Barrel, EdinburghWith cartoonish flair, the likable comic – one half of sketch duo The Delightful Sausage – revels in the repeated indignity of being ditched for someone else The …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:07PMThe former PM’s one-off onstage chat with standup Matt Forde belied his dour image. If only he’d shown more of this side of himself to the electorate Where is the comedy, Matt Forde, in …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:12PM
