Pleasance Dome, EdinburghThis unfunny spoof of Glasgow’s dismal Wonka-themed attraction is as short of ideas as the event that inspired itHow we laughed at Willy’s Chocolate Experience, a family attraction so bad it left children in tears. What nerve t…
Continue ReadingMonkey Barrel Comedy, EdinburghThe Massive Dad star riffs on the benefits of making comedy online, buoyed by arch good humour and high-quality gags within gagsStevie Martin’s show weighs up the differences between live and online comedy. Her career beg…
Continue ReadingCancel culture, faltering fatherhood and the life of a tennis champ are dramatised as standups including Ivo Graham, Anna Morris and Adam Riches take a theatrical path this summerSam Kissajukian spent 10 years on the Australian standup circuit but incr…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe Australian comedian’s rocky 2023 is explored in PowerPoint, SMS exchanges, rap, musical comedy and online videosThe year 2023 was the worst of Lou Wall’s life, they tell us, at the start of a set recently shortlisted f…
Continue ReadingThere are benefits and perils in talking about your personal experiences – as Richard Gadd found after his TV show went viral. So how are Edinburgh acts handling it this year?‘If you’re not in an OK place, you’re just re-traumatising yourself,” says An…
Continue ReadingEnjoy a good one-liner? Here are some of the best rib-ticklers from the annual comedy extravaganzaOlaf Falafel: My desire to spontaneously sing The Lion Sleeps Tonight is always just a whim away.Jack Skipper: I failed RE. Couldn’t believe it when I fou…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe straight-talking comic’s debut hour is cheerfully rude and glowing with maternal love, as she describes parenting a son with autismAt a festival with 3,600 shows, some will feel samey. But no other performance is likel…
Continue ReadingOr What’s Left of Us by Sh!t Theatre is a playful and starkly profound hour in which the duo share their bereavements and stir reflections of our ownWhen someone you love dies, the grief can be almost unbearable, but there can also be a sense of someth…
Continue ReadingMonkey Barrel Comedy, Edinburgh Armed with spreadsheets and her usual playfulness, the comic attempts to evaluate the worth of her life so farHas autobiographical comedy reached its apotheosis? You might think so given how Zoë Coombs Marr’s show Every …
Continue ReadingSatirical musicals are trending at this year’s fringe, but there are plenty of intense one-person shows too, a knockout coming-of-age drama, and the unmissable return of Every Brilliant ThingMy biggest mistake of the Edinburgh fringe wasn’t mixing up i…
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