Ex-call centre worker wins top Edinburgh comedy award

Jordan Brookes wins prize for best show while Catherine Cohen crowned best newcomerA former NHS call centre worker has won the “best show” prize at the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Awards.Jordan Brookes’ experimental, convention-busting show I’ve Got N…

Continue Reading

Jordan Brookes is disturbingly funny – and a worthy Edinburgh Comedy awards champ

Brookes has won the biggest prize in live comedy, with Catherine Cohen named best newcomer and Jessica Brough recognised for her Fringe of Colour projectThe Edinburgh Comedy award has found itself another deserving winner in Jordan Brookes, who has bag…

Continue Reading

Demi Lardner review – an explosion of animated oddities

Gilded Balloon Teviot, EdinburghThe Australian standup’s show is stuffed with arbitrary observations – and some of the funniest moments on the fringeAbsurdism-gone-haywire won the 2015 Edinburgh comedy award for her fellow Australian Sam Simmons, and n…

Continue Reading

Ivo Graham review – old Etonian’s awfully droll domestic jokes

Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe comic lets rip – if only a bit – for a fine hour of standup about new parenthood and his fogeyish tendenciesThe only thing holding Ivo Graham back in previous shows was his own, well, restraint. The old Etonian (he nev…

Continue Reading

Will Adamsdale: Power-hungry puppets ate my comedy career

Pesky meerkats, War Dogs, Basil Brush … The puppets are taking over, says the standup – and they’re sabotaging his Edinburgh showMy reaction time is too slow to be a proper standup. It takes me about two weeks to come up with a decent riposte to a heck…

Continue Reading

Simon Munnery review – Alan Parker goes to war with the modern world

The Stand, EdinburghThe big-thinking leftie is revived for the age of climate change and Corbyn – but is he still as radical as he once was?The last time Simon Munnery was doing his Alan Parker character, the issues of the day were the poll tax, the ra…

Continue Reading

Edinburgh Comedy awards 2019: surrealists, standups and sausage act vie for prize

London Hughes and Jessica Fostekew are among the comics on the shortlist of nine nominees, while Catherine Cohen is up for best newcomer The shortlist for the biggest prize in live comedy, the Edinburgh Comedy award, has been announced – and it’s one o…

Continue Reading

Edinburgh Comedy awards 2019: surrealists, standups and sausage act vie for prize

London Hughes and Jessica Fostekew are among the comics on the shortlist of nine nominees, while Catherine Cohen is up for best newcomer The shortlist for the biggest prize in live comedy, the Edinburgh Comedy award, has been announced – and it’s one o…

Continue Reading

James McNicholas: The Boxer review – a knockout comedy

Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghMcNicholas throws down a heavyweight hour of standup and storytelling about his champion grandad Terry DownesTerry Downes was world middleweight boxing champion in the early 1960s. His grandson James McNicholas is a writer…

Continue Reading

Crystal Rasmussen review – drag star with charisma by the bucketload

Underbelly Cowgate, EdinburghA Romanov raised by wolves meets a struggling Lancashire boy in a memoir dipped in glamour and pulsating to powerpopThere’s a well-travelled road from boy- or girlband glory to solo success. So why shouldn’t it be open to a…

Continue Reading