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Love Songs review – comedy in the key of life

August 21, 2018TheGuardian

Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh
Endearing storytelling carries the day in Alissa Anne Jeun Yi’s show, combining standup, poetry and rap

Alissa Anne Jeun Yi’s flyers call her Edinburgh fringe debut a “one-woman spoken-word and rap show” but Love Songs, tucked into the corner of Underbelly at Cowgate, comes across more like standup comedy. For most of the show, Jeun Yi bounces with endearing energy from anecdote to anecdote, all loosely connected to the theme of love.

With only occasional music and props kept to a minimum, it’s the storytelling that carries the piece. We hear how her parents met at university, the love lessons she learned watching soap operas in Hong Kong, and how her mixed-race Chinese and white heritage plays into the way her womanhood is viewed by the world. The sharp observations inspire genuine laughs. One, about fancying someone with a minimal triangle wrist tattoo – “it says so much whilst saying so little!” – is a reminder millennials can really nail our own self-ridicule.

Punchlines, power plays and Pussy Riot: Edinburgh fringe – in pictures

August 18, 2018TheGuardian

The original jukebox musical, a survey of the world’s ills, and defying the Russian authorities to appear at Edinburgh. All photography by Murdo MacLeod

‘After 15 minutes, my audience walked out’: standups on their Edinburgh debuts

August 14, 2018TheGuardian

Bridget Christie got locked out, Nina Conti ran off with a monkey – and Reginald D Hunter begged his ex for help. Top comedians relive their first fringe gig

Dave Gorman
I was 19 and nowhere near ready. I had a decent enough act – if there was a full house and everyone was up for it. But I had none of the skills needed for working a small, arms-folded, go-on-prove-it audience. Luckily, the only reviewer who came along didn’t hear my name and reviewed me under the title of the double act I’d replaced at the last minute. “Brute Farce,” wrote the critic, “is a strange young man who mumbles as he walks about the stage.” They’re probably still peeved.
Dave Gorman’s With Great Powerpoint Comes Great Responsibilitypoint tour starts in September.

Hamilton goes Formula One, unseen Blue Peter and Maureen Lipman goes for it: Edinburgh festival 2018 – in pictures

August 11, 2018TheGuardian

Tape Face strikes again, TV cult and internet sensation Limmy uploads his videos, while Owen Roberts lets a six-year-old write his show for this year’s fringe.
All photography by Murdo MacLeod

Rose Matafeo: Horndog review – volcanic standup about love and sex

August 10, 2018TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
Matafeo’s neurosis, intelligence and flamboyant sense of her own ridiculousness make her a near-perfect comedian

. Now she explains why she’s never been quite right for romantic lead. Horndog is a history of the New Zealand comic’s brushes with love and sex – and, having kissed nine people in her life (she’s 26), that easily fits into a fringe hour. And what an hour it is: another storming set from a woman whose neuroses, intelligence and flamboyant sense of her own ridiculousness make her a near-perfect comedian.

There are fewer frills or set-pieces than in Matafeo’s previous work. Horndog is just a volcanic eruption of standup, occasionally embellished by loud blasts of audiovisual. We are told she has recently experienced a breakup, which isn’t the show’s theme but its context. Why, Matafeo wants to know, is she so obsessive about relationships? Wherefore her peculiar definition of horniness: “Girls putting 100% into something that’s not worth it”?

The best shows at the Edinburgh festival 2018

August 10, 2018August 24, 2018TheGuardian

Plan your schedule with our roundup of top shows, ordered by start time. This page will be updated daily throughout the festival Continue reading…

Ad Libido review – taking female pleasure into her own hands

August 9, 2018TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
Fran Bushe’s comedy uses glitter and smart songs to advocate better understanding of sex for women

Fran Bushe wants to fix sex. Armed with glitter, songs and a diagram of her vulva, she’s on a mission to kickstart her own libido and change how we think and talk about female pleasure – and its opposite – in the bedroom. After trying and failing to enjoy sex for 15 years and facing a parade of unhelpful advice from GPs, Bushe is taking matters into her own hands.

Though, of course, it’s not that simple. Bushe wants a quick fix, a happy ending, but much of her solo show is about how life – and sex – don’t work that way. At least not in the sexually unequal society we still live in. Ad Libido is unapologetically personal, to the extent of including intimate snippets from Bushe’s teenage diary, yet it also lightly suggests the external pressures that many women feel when making decisions about sex. Often throughout Bushe’s quest it becomes as much about soothing the feelings of male partners as trying to make sex pleasurable for herself.

Ad Libido review – taking female pleasure into her own hands

August 9, 2018TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
Fran Bushe’s comedy uses glitter and smart songs to advocate better understanding of sex for women

Fran Bushe wants to fix sex. Armed with glitter, songs and a diagram of her vulva, she’s on a mission to kickstart her own libido and change how we think and talk about female pleasure – and its opposite – in the bedroom. After trying and failing to enjoy sex for 15 years and facing a parade of unhelpful advice from GPs, Bushe is taking matters into her own hands.

Though, of course, it’s not that simple. Bushe wants a quick fix, a happy ending, but much of her solo show is about how life – and sex – don’t work that way. At least not in the sexually unequal society we still live in. Ad Libido is unapologetically personal, to the extent of including intimate snippets from Bushe’s teenage diary, yet it also lightly suggests the external pressures that many women feel when making decisions about sex. Often throughout Bushe’s quest it becomes as much about soothing the feelings of male partners as trying to make sex pleasurable for herself.

Garry Starr Performs Everything review – theatre saviour’s complete works of silliness

August 7, 2018TheGuardian

Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh
Damien Warren-Smith’s alter ego delivers a drama masterclass, leading us from clownish chaos to feats of comic genius

‘Theatre is dying. Garry is our only hope,” we’re told. Arriving in Edinburgh with considerable buzz from the Melbourne and Brighton festivals, Damien Warren-Smith’s show – like Jon Pointing’s last year – is comic catnip for theatre people, and a hoot for everyone else. Warren-Smith plays Garry Starr: gangly of limb, quivering with sincerity, and frequently stripped down to nothing but the ruff around his neck. He’s here to rescue forsaken theatre by demonstrating every one of its genres in 60 minutes. He manages 13, by which time the clownish chaos has reached a dizzying pitch.

The idea, he tells us, is to breathe life back into an art form that’s been hollowed out by his bete noire, and supposed former employer, the RSC. So here is Starr playing Pinter with an audience stooge, and being very particular about the famous pause. Euro-theatre is represented by a contemporary-dance Kafka. Slapstick descends into barely choreographed violence involving Starr, four punters and several floppy foam pipes.

Garry Starr Performs Everything review – theatre saviour’s complete works of silliness

August 7, 2018TheGuardian

Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh
Damien Warren-Smith’s alter ego delivers a drama masterclass, leading us from clownish chaos to feats of comic genius

‘Theatre is dying. Garry is our only hope,” we’re told. Arriving in Edinburgh with considerable buzz from the Melbourne and Brighton festivals, Damien Warren-Smith’s show – like Jon Pointing’s last year – is comic catnip for theatre people, and a hoot for everyone else. Warren-Smith plays Garry Starr: gangly of limb, quivering with sincerity, and frequently stripped down to nothing but the ruff around his neck. He’s here to rescue forsaken theatre by demonstrating every one of its genres in 60 minutes. He manages 13, by which time the clownish chaos has reached a dizzying pitch.

The idea, he tells us, is to breathe life back into an art form that’s been hollowed out by his bete noire, and supposed former employer, the RSC. So here is Starr playing Pinter with an audience stooge, and being very particular about the famous pause. Euro-theatre is represented by a contemporary-dance Kafka. Slapstick descends into barely choreographed violence involving Starr, four punters and several floppy foam pipes.

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