After lockdowns kept them out of touch with audiences, standups explain their exhilaration at coming together to raise laughs at Edinburgh fringeThe lights go down signalling the start of the show, but Rob Auton is not on stage. Members of the crowd be…
Continue ReadingWith research showing sexual harassment is a routine occurrence, there is growing demand for arts venues to commit to protecting entertainersPosey Mehta, like many performers at the Edinburgh fringe, has been flyering for her own show. It’s called I Am…
Continue ReadingWith research showing sexual harassment is a routine occurrence, there is growing demand for arts venues to commit to protecting entertainersPosey Mehta, like many performers at the Edinburgh fringe, has been flyering for her own show. It’s called I Am…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe Mischief Theatre regular delivers routines to fit the audience’s requests before heading down a darker path in an uneven show“You can’t please everyone,” Charlie Russell’s been told, to which she wants to reply: wanna …
Continue ReadingRoundabout @ Summerhall, EdinburghSamuel Barnett is remarkable in Marcelo Dos Santos’s one-man play which analyses joke-craft and a comedian’s compulsionsTowards the end of this enthralling monologue by Marcelo Dos Santos, the unnamed character played …
Continue ReadingMaking his fringe debut with a show about a troubled standup, the actor explains why he loves solo performance, his issues with The History Boys, and why this government’s days are numbered“It scares me,” laughs Samuel Barnett about doing the Edinburgh…
Continue ReadingRoundabout at Summerhall, Edinburgh Sam Ward takes hints from his audience to imagine how their lives could go from here, in a bittersweet contemplation of fateThere is a joke in Waiting for Godot that comes after a rare moment of action. “That passed …
Continue ReadingGilded Balloon, Edinburgh The Bruce Willis action film has had a big impact on superfan Richard Marsh. He retells the story in rhyme, with his finger for a gunRichard Marsh has clearly seen Die Hard more times than he’s had Christmas dinners. He’s here…
Continue ReadingSex, social commentary and Ian McKellan in a dance Hamlet: where else but the first full fringe since 2019, with standouts including Sheeps, Bilal Zafar and ‘a show without actors’Day five of the festival. My friend Ani is stretched out, comatose, on a…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghVictoria Melody uses theatre to unpick the mechanics of the comedy world – with some fascinating discoveries about neurodivergence along the wayVictoria Melody likes to throw herself into things. For previous shows, the pe…
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