Various venuesSets from Lily Phillips, President Obonjo and Foxdog Studios may not rival the Edinburgh fringe, but give a bracing sense of the diversity of the comedy sceneWe need a new kind of comedy, says character comic President Obonjo, “a comedy …
Continue ReadingWhy did the Taxi and Saturday Night Live star travel across America paying women $1,000 to wrestle him? Could transcendental meditation have had anything to do with it?By the time he died in 1984 of lung cancer aged only 35, Andy Kaufman had wrestled m…
Continue ReadingPleasance Dome, EdinburghThe TikTok star follows an atom through time, via a dinosaur, Julius Caesar’s lunch and Van Gogh’s ear, in an uncynical show with an excess of scene changesInjury time is mushrooming in football in response to the realisation t…
Continue ReadingUnderbelly Cowgate, EdinburghAstute, well-built set about suffering and its surprise elimination is charmingly at odds with other festival narrativesWe’ve seen shows about trauma, depression and anxiety. What about a show exploring their blissful absol…
Continue ReadingAs the curtain falls on this year’s fringe, we ask performers and producers how it was for themBy the end of the Edinburgh fringe, anyone who has been here all month will tell you how tired they are. There have been highs – after a tentative return las…
Continue ReadingThe Edinburgh comedy award-winning show Ends is a superb set about Shah’s grandfather, the standup’s imminent wedding and multicultural Britain The cliche about Edinburgh fringe comedy is that, instead of jokes, it’s all tears and dead loved ones. No o…
Continue Reading32-year-old comedian whose set explores race, class and migration becomes first British-Asian to take prizeA show about multiculturalism has won best show at the Edinburgh comedy awards. Ahir Shah, the first British-Asian to win the prestigious award, …
Continue ReadingEdinburgh fringe comics portraying cancelled standups and rightwing politicians talk about the dangers and successes of their satireThe US comedian Martin Urbano has always enjoyed mocking lazy standup jokes – the sort of routines that open with “Anyon…
Continue ReadingMonkey Barrel Comedy, EdinburghWritten in the shadow of grief and nominated for the Edinburgh comedy award, this barnstorming set takes in race, class and migrationQuite the fringe journey for Ahir Shah this year, who arrived in town with an unready wo…
Continue ReadingJulia Masli, Ahir Shah and Janine Harouni are on the eight-strong shortlist for the coveted £10,000 prize at the festivalA clown-therapy show that takes place in the middle of the night. A hymn to British multiculturalism. And a show at risk of imminen…
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