Pesky meerkats, War Dogs, Basil Brush … The puppets are taking over, says the standup – and they’re sabotaging his Edinburgh showMy reaction time is too slow to be a proper standup. It takes me about two weeks to come up with a decent riposte to a heck…
Continue ReadingPerforming at the festival can be a taxing experience. Objectively Funny has created a peer support network that turns attention offstageIt’s lunchtime in Edinburgh’s Old Town and I’ve swapped comedy for something more serious. On stage, psychotherapis…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghMatthew Greenhough’s buzzy one-man show clashes comedy, factionalism and jazz trumpet into a plea for tolerance between the echo chambersAre we “trapped in separate echo chambers” and can the divides be bridged? Matthew Gr…
Continue ReadingJames McNicholas is used to performing comedy sketches. Now he’s letting his guard down for the story of middleweight champ turned movie star Terry DownesThey called him the Paddington Express. Terry Downes was a ferociously charismatic British boxer w…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghKatie Arnstein uses Dorothy’s yellow-brick road to map her own struggles and issue a raw reminder of the urgency of #MeToo‘We saw your boobs! We saw your boobs!” The words from Seth MacFarlane’s opening number at the 2013 …
Continue ReadingPersonal stories – of exile, homelessness, illness and existential terror – jostle for hearts and minds with farts and live bread-bakingIt will come as no great shock that much of the Edinburgh fringe is taken up with people talking about themselves, w…
Continue ReadingIt used to be that just wearing a dress and lip-syncing was enough. But now drag is mainstream, the bar for this most creative and transgressive art form has been raisedIt’s Friday night at the Edinburgh fringe. Artists are running all over town, weavi…
Continue ReadingA trio of performances – Daniel Bellus in Beat, Alexander Fox in Snare and Mick Berry’s Keith Moon: The Real Me – put drums centre stage It must be something to do with being at the back all the time, but give a drummer their moment in the spotlight an…
Continue ReadingOnce based in a rundown boozer, DryWrite nights encouraged risk and giddy game-playing – their spirit is felt in Killing Eve and across British theatre todayWhen Phoebe Waller-Bridge performed her script Fleabag at the Edinburgh fringe in 2013, it land…
Continue ReadingPerforming at the fringe can cost a fortune – little wonder so many comics bunk in together. We drop in on Jon Richardson, Rose Matafeo and Josie Long, among others, to see how they liveIt is the world’s biggest comedy festival, with jokes cracked all …
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