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Dylan Moran review – superb standup sets out to solve the problem of life

August 19, 2018TheGuardian

Stand Comedy Club, Edinburgh
In his new show Dr Cosmos, Moran ranges across religion, politics, cat personalities and TV ads for shampoo

Elsewhere on the fringe, twentysomething tyros will hurl their “hellzapoppin” comedy in your face, says Dylan Moran. But not here: “This is drive-time, people!” It’s not the first time the Irishman has played premature senescence for comic effect, but now there’s a new development. He’s stopped drinking, he tells us: “That’s why this show is a bit wonky.” Well, if this is wonky, I’d marvel to see Moran on point. Because Dr Cosmos – in its hour-long version before touring in expanded form – is top-drawer standup from this past master of the art form.

There’s no theme, save Moran’s bold promise to offer “all the answers” to the problem of life. With a crib sheet for assistance (he says teetotalism has affected his memory), he ranges across politics, religion, dinner parties and – he’s not always au courant – Findus crispy pancakes. It’s “not even jazz”, he says of the show’s modus operandi. “Jazz is too organised. It’s just -zz.” Certainly, the show derives some of its charge from its free-form nature. The impression, rightly or wrongly, is of a man plucking jokes and extemporised riffs from a head teeming with comedy. Few fringe shows come as well stuffed with sparkling material, or suggest that the act could probably keep operating at a high, if scattershot, level for hours.

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

Alex Edelman review – a Jewish comic walks into a Nazi meeting …

August 17, 2018TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
In Just for Us, the smooth-talking and apparently fearless Bostonian standup recounts gatecrashing a white supremacist gathering in New York

A young Jewish guy goes to a Nazi meeting assuming he’ll be OK … it’s the definition of white privilege, the Bostonian comic Alex Edelman’s friend tells him. Edelman, a best newcomer winner at Edinburgh four years ago, has always been upfront about his advantages in life – though it has not stopped a certain complacency creeping into his work now and then. But in his new show, he pitches himself squarely into a world in which privilege offers him little protection. Just for Us is built around a visit Edelman made to a white nationalist gathering in New York City. He did so on a whim, motivated only by curiosity and the likelihood, one assumes, that it would make for an eye-opening hour of standup.

Rosie Jones: ‘People feel awkward about disability so I always have jokes in my back pocket’

August 17, 2018TheGuardian

The Bridlington-born standup is at Edinburgh with her debut show. She talks about surprising audiences, her sitcom and how her cerebral palsy lets her push boundaries

How would you describe your sense of humour?

I’m very cheeky. Because of my disability, I know how to push things and I know where the line is. I can probably push that line further than a lot of able-bodied comics. I enjoy playing with what is comfortable, and trying to make people be more open and more willing to see past the disability.

Rosie Jones: ‘People feel awkward about disability so I always have jokes in my back pocket’

August 17, 2018TheGuardian

The Bridlington-born standup is at Edinburgh with her debut show. She talks about surprising audiences, her sitcom and how her cerebral palsy lets her push boundaries

How would you describe your sense of humour?

I’m very cheeky. Because of my disability, I know how to push things and I know where the line is. I can probably push that line further than a lot of able-bodied comics. I enjoy playing with what is comfortable, and trying to make people be more open and more willing to see past the disability.

The Pin review – one of Edinburgh’s most dazzling comedy shows

August 16, 2018TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
Terrific skits and inventive gags mean the laughs come thick and fast in a delightful new hour from the sketch duo

Cleverness comes as standard from sketch duo the Pin. In the past, they have never quite shaken the suspicion of smugness and a sense, perhaps, that we’re buying all that flamboyant invention at the expense of warmth. No such danger with their new show, Backstage, which is simultaneously one of the most dazzling comedy shows in Edinburgh and a complete hoot. It’s probably no coincidence that here, more pronounced than before, Alex Owen and Ben Ashenden embrace the straight man/funny man dichotomy they have hitherto resisted.

The conceit is that the Pin play second fiddle to another double act, Philip and Robin. After their support slot, Owen and Ashenden repair backstage to practise their sketches, snark about the audience and fantasise about taking over at the top of the bill. What follows is a giddy slice of Noises Off-style knockabout, overlaid with the Pin’s signature meta-comedy, as Owen, Ashenden, Philip and Robin chase one another on stage and off, identities get scrambled and a chair on the stage miraculously reappears – and vanishes from – behind the scenes.

Jayde Adams: The Divine Ms Jayde review – comedy in full diva mode

August 16, 2018TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
The standup’s compelling personality and powerful voice add up to emphatic entertainment in this musical show

The audience are on their feet by the end of The Divine Ms Jayde, which feels less like spontaneous reaction than part of the show’s choreography. That’s not to detract from the potency of Jayde Adams’ third fringe outing, a musical comedy created and performed with the Jerry Springer: The Opera maestro Richard Thomas. But it’s also one of those shows – and Adams has one of those personae – designed with bums-from-seats vertical takeoff in mind. In comedic terms, it’s so-so. But Thomas’s music, Adams’ powerful voice and her spotlight-compelling personality still add up to emphatic entertainment.

You could see it coming after 2017’s Jayded, which laid the ghosts of her low self-esteem to rest, but this year Adams goes full diva. She is wheeled on stage under a flowery bower. She splays herself louchely across a grand piano. She emotes like a trouper – albeit for laughs – in a number demonstrating how to tearjerk on stage. (It’s all in the wrists, surprisingly.) Elsewhere, several songs (Whatever Happened to Baby Jayde?; Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was Younger) send up musical-theatre soul-searching without discarding sentimentality.

Camilla Cleese on her dad John: ‘He’s not my favourite Python!’

August 15, 2018TheGuardian

The comedian is doing a show about her father in Edinburgh. She talks about the sexist LA standup scene, her reconciliation with her dad – and doing jokes about his ex-wives

With just a hint of a smile, Camilla Cleese admits that the name of her Edinburgh fringe show is “the ultimate, shameless nepotism”. It’s called Produced by John Cleese, even though it isn’t produced by him at all. But she is. “I don’t think he would put money into something as un-lucrative as this,” says the daughter of the comedy legend, “unless it was a marriage”.

Camilla barely mentioned the connection in her first Edinburgh show, back in 2014, except for some jokes at the expense of her father’s many – and often expensive – marriages. But this time around, more confident and more experienced, she’s embracing her heritage. “I want to talk a little bit about being his daughter but, because I’m not doing a full hour, I don’t really have the time to delve into all the different aspects. So it will be a combination of that and some of my standup. For people who are familiar with him and his work, it’s clear where my influences come from. I can blame anything offensive on him.”

If I misbehaved, he’d act like a gorilla, going on all fours. I’d be so embarrassed, I’d immediately shut up

If you’re asked to go on the road with a male headliner, there can be an assumption something is going to happen

Evelyn Mok: Bubble Butt review – a bummer of a show

August 14, 2018TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
Mok’s routines about sexuality, dolls and her mum’s disciplinary habits are promising but underpowered

By the end, Evelyn Mok is blaming tiredness and asking her audience’s forgiveness. It’s been that kind of show: misfiring, fatally underpowered. We are left to speculate how well her show Bubble Butt might work on a good day, but the signs aren’t encouraging. A #MeToo-tinged account of the comedian’s sexual sense of self, her tale of grooming never really goes anywhere, nor are her jokes quite good enough to compensate.

Mok puts herself on the back foot straight away, needlessly referencing her small audience. (Not that small, in fact.) The opening section ranges across her “overflowing” identity as a bisexual, plus-size “hashtag WOC”. We hear how her mother warned “you can’t find a hubby if you’re chubby” and how she attracts a very particular – and not very appealing – category of man.

Mr Swallow and the Vanishing Elephant review – a trunkful of tricks

August 14, 2018TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
Nick Mohammed doesn’t quite conjure the powers of previous extravaganzas but this entertaining set has some impressive feats of memory

Nick Mohammed’s comedy, magic and musical mashups have been among the highlights of recent Edinburgh fringes, culminating in a Houdini extravaganza two years ago that I’d happily have been chained to. His new show, The Vanishing Elephant, where he is again in character as excitable northern busybody Mr Swallow, doesn’t quite measure up. It’s more of a conventional magic show, without the preposterous narrative or musical overreach of its predecessors. I also missed erstwhile sidekicks Mr Goldsworth and Jonathan; Mr Swallow is a character at his eccentric funniest when he has someone to play off.

The conceit – it may even be true – is that Mr Swallow has narrowly failed to secure the elephant that would have supplied the show’s dramatic finale. Instead, he serves up some lesser illusions, a few impressive feats of memory – and character comedy too, if lower in the mix than usual. Sometimes the comedy and magic pull in different directions. In a subsidiary character as the scouse spirit-guide Claire, Mohammed pulls off a mean tarot card trick, but the alter ego is so garish – and the amplified voice so grating – the conjuring gets a bit overwhelmed.

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