Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe standup delivers bullet-proof set-pieces in a masterclass on threading emotional significance through joyful autobiographyLast year, a late reveal recast Ania Magliano’s lighthearted comedy set as something more meanin…
Continue ReadingAs Duncan Macmillan’s celebration of the little things in life lights up the Edinburgh fringe, 10 years after its debut, the actors who have helped make it a hit all over the world explain its universal power to connectAn uplifting play about depressio…
Continue ReadingAssembly George Square, EdinburghNaomi Petersen and Graham Dickson complete the trio who weave a tangled web out of three words suggested by the audienceBefore she became a star via This Is Going to Hurt and One Day, Ambika Mod trained with improv comp…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh In this winning pastiche set at a gender reveal party, Doherty plays a monstrous estate agent battling occult forcesCome to a show called Gay Witch Sex Cult, and you don’t expect a host like this. Kaelan Trough is an esta…
Continue ReadingBack for its 15th year, this festival favourite finds a bespectacled primate sitting silently on stage for 56 minutes – to wild applauseThe queue snakes around the bar, stretches down the corridor and up the tightly packed lane to Edinburgh’s Victoria …
Continue ReadingIn standup especially, a joke is indivisible from its context. The ‘you had to be there’ rule should be more carefully observedDelayed in transit with Mr Z, I was looking for a way to fill precisely one minute. I’d scoped out my responsibility in the c…
Continue ReadingOne standup asks moral questions about her family’s post-Soviet wealth, the other uses a self-satisfied persona to survey his gilded lifestyle. Both strike comedy gold at Edinburgh fringeAt a festival where everyone’s losing money, and some can’t affor…
Continue ReadingMonkey Barrel Comedy, EdinburghThe Mancunian’s sophomore fringe set, addressing his diagnosis of gout, is delivered with feral roars and fine one-linersIn these days of intensely autobiographical comedy, acts often rinse their identities, and empty the…
Continue ReadingWith a seaside-postcard sensibility, the standup delivers racist and sexist material that jars with the spirit of the fringeAs if we didn’t know to expect old-fashioned from Bobby Davro, the three shows preceding his, in his niche fringe venue, are tri…
Continue ReadingPhotographer Murdo MacLeod covers Scotland’s annual arts spectacular, from a musical Mexican seance to colourful juggling Continue reading…
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