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Joseph Morpurgo: Hammerhead review – uproariously funny Q&A spoof

August 6, 2017TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
Morpurgo’s ludicrous satire on the post-show chat is so full of invention you could watch it twice and not stop laughing

Joseph Morpurgo made a name for himself with a pair of high-concept multimedia comedy shows, the second of which, Soothing Sounds for Baby (2015), is routinely talked about as one of the great Edinburgh comedy award near-misses. He returns with another sui generis offering, Hammerhead, spoofing the conventions of the post-show Q&A. I doubted how well it was doing this over the opening stages, which are big, brash and broad – as is the whole show. But I was won over once I accepted that Hammerhead follows no one’s rules but its own, and began savouring the silliness, structural intricacy and sheer bountiful invention of Morpurgo’s enterprise.

Sara Pascoe: LadsLadsLads review – breakup tales from a woman reborn

August 5, 2017TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
The whipsmart standup overthinks, overshares and delivers a winningly funny show that finds the humour in heartbreak

Call it reinvention, or call it back to basics, but Sara Pascoe’s Edinburgh fringe return – after a couple of years writing and promoting her book Animal – marks a departure from the shows that made her name. Those were anthropology masquerading as comedy, and wore their erudition on their sleeve. This one, entitled LadsLadsLads, is more introspective and treads ground more familiar for standup, as it chronicles Pascoe’s efforts to be happily single after the breakup of a four-year relationship. It’s still whipsmart, though, and winningly funny, as Pascoe overthinks and overshares in the name of our entertainment.

Edinburgh festival 2017: 10 shows to see

August 4, 2017TheGuardian

A puppet blockbuster, a Bigfoot opera and a Northern Soul dance marathon all feature in the lineup of the 70th Edinburgh festivalEdinburgh Playhouse Continue reading…

Comic Rose Matafeo: ‘I definitely probably have a moderate amount of talent’

August 3, 2017TheGuardian

Since first picking up the mic at 15, the standup has tap-danced, done Aerosmith karaoke and starred in her own TV show. So why does she want to disappear offstage?

Was there ever a greater discrepancy between talent and confidence? Rose Matafeo, at 25, is an award-winning standup, a TV star in her native New Zealand and made a striking Edinburgh fringe debut last summer. That show wasn’t perfect, but Matafeo’s force of personality – dominant, dorky-excitable – was a sight to behold. Here was a comedian whose power couldn’t be denied. Except by Matafeo herself, it turns out, whose stellar charisma on stage is matched by subterranean self-esteem off it.

This becomes clear over coffee as Matafeo girds herself for a return to Edinburgh with her new show, Sassy Best Friend. When I ask what it is about her comedy that is winning such acclaim, Matafeo squirms with discomfort. “That’s the most uncomfortable position to put someone like me in,” she says. “I’m not going to be forced to answer that.”

Tickets to the 10th and final Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival are on sale now

July 28, 2017TheLaughButton

The lineup announcement for this year’s Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival — an annual event held in Brooklyn by the stand-up… MORE

Tickets to the 10th and final Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival are on sale now appeared first on The Laugh Button.

Just For Laughs is headed for South Africa in 2018

July 26, 2017TheComicsComic

As South African comedians have begun making names for themselves in America, now Just For Laughs will be spreading its comedy festival brand to South Africa. JFL announced today during its 35th annual signature fest in Montreal that it’ll debut Just For Laughs Africa in 2018 in Durban, South Africa. JFL Africa will grow in subsequent years […]

Just For Laughs announces its 2017 New Faces

July 24, 2017TheLaughButton

One of the year’s most anticipated lists is finally here: Just For Laughs has released its 2017 class of New… MORE

Just For Laughs announces its 2017 New Faces appeared first on The Laugh Button.

Stars from comedy’s punk past return to the Edinburgh fringe

July 22, 2017TheGuardian

They were at the vanguard of political comedy. Now Alexei Sayle, Craig Ferguson and Sue Perkins are heading back to the festival, as it celebrates its 70th birthday

Unknown talents and student hopefuls head for the Edinburgh festival fringe at this time of year, aiming to break into the entertainment industry. This summer, however, a loud and anarchic blast from comedy’s punk past is also on the bill.

A slew of stars, including Alexei Sayle, a comic hero of the 1980s, and Sue Perkins, who first made it big at the festival 20 or so years ago, are returning to try their luck as the fringe celebrates its 70th birthday.

‘We haven’t made a profit for five years’: risky business at Edinburgh fringe

July 19, 2017TheGuardian

Running a festival venue is about more than booking acts and selling tickets. From converting lecture rooms to spending £25,000 on Astroturf, we reveal the costs of putting on a show

Ten years ago, at the Edinburgh festival, Anthony Alderson became the not very proud owner of 44 Vauxhall Astras. Alderson, the Pleasance’s director, had bought 22 of the cars from a scrapyard for a show called Auto Auto, staged in the Grand, the largest of the Pleasance venues. But it turned out they were the wrong kind of Vauxhall Astra. The show turned cars into comedy percussion instruments and these all had sun-roofs. So Alderson had to buy another 22. “I think the scrap dealer thought he’d hit the goldmine,” he recalls ruefully.

One year, a large dance company made back the costs of their entire Edinburgh run with a single gig in South America

It’s tough to run a venue, and it’s getting tougher. People do it because they are addicted to Edinburgh in August

‘I had to relearn how to be funny’: comedian Lou Conran on her show about baby loss

July 17, 2017TheGuardian

Lou Conran terminated her pregnancy after five months when she discovered her baby would not survive outside the womb. Now, she is telling her story at the Edinburgh fringe

“Nobody has cried through the previews,” says Lou Conran, “so it can’t be that bad.” The standup, who has supported Sarah Millican and is an Edinburgh festival veteran, is pleased with the warm-ups for her new fringe comedy show, especially as her subject matter lends itself more easily to tears than laughs.

Just over a year ago, when she was five months pregnant, Conran discovered that her baby had a condition she could not survive. After an induced labour, her daughter was stillborn. “An empowering yet painfully funny show about life and ultimately the taboo of death,” states the flyer. Reactions to the concept, she knows, will be mixed. “My mum just said, ‘Oh my god. What are you doing? How on earth are you going to make that funny?’”

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