Shelf: The Kids’ Show review – mayonnaise on your Oreo? Yes please!

Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe duo, doing separate shows for children and adults at the fringe, have hit on a winner – their daft pranks bring the young audience right inIt’s a thing, comedy for kids, but still a fairly marginal thing: it’s hard to …

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Starry Shakespeare, super standups and a Black Sabbath ballet: the best theatre, dance and comedy of autumn 2023

Patsy Ferran takes on Eliza in Pygmalion, Andrew Scott plays multiple characters from Uncle Vanya and Mlima’s Tale tells a powerful tale of the ivory trade. Here’s what’s in store on stage Continue reading…

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The Life Sporadic of Jess Wildgoose review – feverish financial comedy

Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghVoloz Collective’s satirical thriller set during the subprime mortgage crisis is staged with style but has little emotional impactWho needs a load of props when you have a company this game? Within the first few minutes of…

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Cowboys, puppet witches and toilet humour: joyously queer Edinburgh fringe shows

Coming-out tales, ventriloquism, a musical set in a public loo and glamorous late-night cabaret are among the festival’s uplifting LGBTQ+ showsNo one ever pays attention when you’re handed a flyer at the fringe. It’s only when I take a proper look that…

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Troll review – sweetly silly Nordic comedy is monstrous fun

Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh The real beasts – not the internet kind – have come to teach us their ways, learn human stuff and dish the dirt on billy goatsIt’s not easy being green. Just ask these two trolls, sporting hoodies, tights and trainers in v…

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Troll review – sweetly silly Nordic comedy is monstrous fun

Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh The real beasts – not the internet kind – have come to teach us their ways, learn human stuff and dish the dirt on billy goatsIt’s not easy being green. Just ask these two trolls, sporting hoodies, tights and trainers in v…

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‘The doc said you’re having a heart attack right now’: why is US standup Mike Birbiglia still alive?

The comic, who has survived cancer and once sleep-jumped through a closed hotel window, is bringing his Broadway smash about mortality to the UK. ‘I guarantee you’ll laugh,’ he saysFor someone whose affably rumpled appearance suggests Matt Damon waking…

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Hannah Camilleri: Lolly Bag review – star quality shines through the skits

Assembly George Square, EdinburghThe Australian comedian makes it immediately clear you are in safe hands with a show of sketches and charactersIt’s a thrill when a comic you’re seeing for the first time steps onstage, and you know instantly you’re in …

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John Tothill: The Last Living Libertine review – bubbly, flirty tangents through history

Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghSchoolteacher-by-day Tothill’s foppish persona is a delight and his thesis, that hedonism died with the Reformation, is convincingThere are newcomers on the fringe delivering comedy in hand-me-down voices – and then there’…

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Martin Urbano: Apology Comeback Tour review – queasy comedy brings aghast laughter

Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe conceit in the comic’s fringe debut is that his sleazebag persona has been #MeTooed and returns with a barrage of bad-taste jokes “Too dark and weird for mainstream success”? That’s how Martin Urbano describes himself …

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