Pleasance Dome, EdinburghThis is a spiky, interrogative and surprisingly conventional set from an act who usually pushes standup to its limitsYou can fall victim to your own high standards – and few comics have set higher standards than Jordan Brookes….
Continue ReadingMonkey Barrel, EdinburghA comic on the verge of the big time offers a ‘very silly hour’ around the highways and byways of her lifeA former winner of the Sean Lock award for comic originality, Harriet Dyer richly delivers on that promise of oddity in he…
Continue ReadingUnderbelly Bristo Square, Edinburgh There is crackling chemistry between Zofia Zerphy and Rhiannon Bell while their washing gets done but this play remains a puzzleNames go missing like lost socks in this laundry-based, amnesia-laced romcom. With crack…
Continue ReadingGilded Balloon Teviot, EdinburghWith charisma and craft, the Australian standup discusses childhood sexual abuse in a show with a healing qualityIf fringe audiences know Frankie McNair’s work at all, it’s as a purveyor of vaporously insubstantial nonse…
Continue ReadingGilded Balloon TeviotPerformer cleared of death of her roommate in Italy uses new motherhood as framework for her defiant comedy show‘Welcome to the most controversial show on the fringe!” Some audiences will diagnose self-regard in that intro by rooki…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghWith the air of a hungover postmortem, Richardson gives a head-spinning account of an encounter with an older comedianIf you’re partial to a bit of gossip and scandal, Harriet Richardson is your girl. In this gloriously ju…
Continue ReadingSummerhall, EdinburghJessica Aszkenasy rages and wrestles with daddy issues in a show that combines feminist analysis with outrageous humour and tendernessAfter the 2025 debut of her breast-forward stage persona Titclown, Jessica Aszkenasy’s second gru…
Continue ReadingA growing wave of Palestinian performers are using comedy to tell their stories of occupation, exile and warThe war in Gaza is a topic many avoid discussing, let alone joke about. But for Palestinian comedians, humour has become an essential tool for k…
Continue ReadingShe started standup at 17 playing ‘unsafe basements’ and braving revolting hecklers – and even worse headline acts. Now she writes for SNL and is giving Edinburgh a blast of her surreal comedyComedy isn’t just a career for Bella Hull. It’s a compulsion…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe standup is on sparkling form as she mines a lifetime of baffling and alarming experiences for a smart, purposeful and very funny hourSophie Duker is done with men. She swears it. And, in her fourth hour, Hot Beef Injec…
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