Theresa May drag queens: ‘We’ve dined out on her leopard-print heels for years!’
Hard Brexit innuendos, frolics in fields of wheat, that strong and stable obsession … four drag queens reveal why the prime minister is camp gold
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David Baddiel has the last laugh at his online trolls
Twitter abuse proves rich source of material for new standup show
If there’s one thing even the most stupid and bigoted of internet trolls may soon learn, it’s to be wary of getting into an argument with a funny Jewish guy on Twitter – particularly if that guy happens to be David Baddiel.
The multi-talented comedian and children’s novelist finds his constant battles with internet trolls on social media so amusing and illuminating that he is creating a new standup show to explore what provocative online conversations reveal about modern discourse.
I’ve got into online debates where people are being racist about Jews but don’t even understand they’re being racist
Continue ReadingRose Matafeo wins Edinburgh best comedy show award
New Zealander’s show about sex and modern social mores scoops top comedy gong
New Zealander Rose Matafeo has won the coveted best comedy show award at the Edinburgh fringe festival.
Steve Coogan, one of Matafeo’s comic heroes, presented her with the £10,000 prize at a ceremony in Edinburgh on Saturday.
Related: Young women are smashing it at Edinburgh as the #MeToo legacy kicks in | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
Related: Edinburgh award champ Rose Matafeo’s Horndog is a comedy smash
Continue ReadingRose Matafeo wins Edinburgh best comedy show award
New Zealander’s show about sex and modern social mores scoops top comedy gong
New Zealander Rose Matafeo has won the coveted best comedy show award at the Edinburgh fringe festival.
Steve Coogan, one of Matafeo’s comic heroes, presented her with the £10,000 prize at a ceremony in Edinburgh on Saturday.
Related: Young women are smashing it at Edinburgh as the #MeToo legacy kicks in | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
Related: Edinburgh award champ Rose Matafeo’s Horndog is a comedy smash
Continue ReadingEdinburgh Comedy award shortlist includes Ahir Shah and Rose Matafeo
Felicity Ward, Alex Edelman, Glenn Moore, Larry Dean and Kieran Hodgson also among standups in the running for £10,000 main prize – but the list has some striking omissions
The shortlist has been announced for the 2018 Edinburgh Comedy award, and it’s the most traditional lineup the prize has seen for years. In what will be seen as a shortlist for standup purists, the Jewish American act Alex Edelman features with his show about gatecrashing a Nazi meeting, the terrific New Zealander Rose Matafeo gets her first (and overdue) nomination and, with the only show that’s not straight standup, Yorkshireman Kieran Hodgson is nominated for ’75, a storytelling show about the pre-history of Brexit.
Also included – and competing for a prize won last year by Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix phenomenon Nanette – are Ahir Shah (following up on his 2017 nod) with a set about visiting his deported Indian grandmother in the wake of the Windrush scandal, and the veteran Aussie comic Felicity Ward. Gags-man Glenn Moore makes a maiden appearance on the shortlist, and local hero Larry Dean, from Glasgow, is nominated for his breakup show Bampot after a Best Newcomer mention back in 2015.
Continue ReadingAdam Rowe’s jobcentre joke crowned funniest of Edinburgh fringe
Liverpool comedian follows in footsteps of Ken Cheng and Tim Vine in winning award
Comedians often strive to find laughter through the tears, and the winner of this year’s funniest joke of the Edinburgh fringe is no exception.
Adam Rowe has taken home the accolade after riffing on the challenges of being sacked. “Working at the jobcentre has to be a tense job,” he pointed out to his audience. “Knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day.”
Continue ReadingAdam Rowe’s jobcentre joke crowned funniest of Edinburgh fringe
Liverpool comedian follows in footsteps of Ken Cheng and Tim Vine in winning award
Comedians often strive to find laughter through the tears, and the winner of this year’s funniest joke of the Edinburgh fringe is no exception.
Adam Rowe has taken home the accolade after riffing on the challenges of being sacked. “Working at the jobcentre has to be a tense job,” he pointed out to his audience. “Knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day.”
Continue Reading‘She’s got no filter’: the standup who let a six-year-old write his comedy show
Giving his partner’s daughter free rein during the creative process has resulted in Owen Roberts’ most surreal show to date – and the sort of laughs other comics at Edinburgh dream of
In a sweaty Portakabin in Edinburgh, a standup makes his entrance to Let It Go from Frozen. He is dressed as a chicken, complete with feather boa and yellow tights, and before long is clucking among the audience, dancing and laying eggs. This, explains standup Owen Roberts, is what happens when you let a six-year-old girl create your fringe comedy show.
The idea came to Roberts, who usually performs with the sketch trio Beasts, when he was trying to write his first solo material. After spending the day in front of a blank computer screen, he went to pick up his partner’s garrulous daughter, Isabella, from school. Isabella, he realised, was full of imagination and energy. Could she rescue him in this moment of desperation? After all, he helps her with her homework.
Continue ReadingStrewth! Antipodean women deliver summer of laughter to Britain
Comics from Australia and New Zealand will take centre stage, from Netflix to the Edinburgh fringeAustralian comedians have traditionally provided British audiences with a slice of unabashed, earthy humour, dating back to the early heyday of Dame Edna …
Continue ReadingFunny bones run in the family as fringe plays host to comic dynasties
This year’s Edinburgh festival features many young standups with parents – from Mark Steel to Gyles Brandreth – who blazed the same trail
Among the many voices booming out across comedy venues next month during Edinburgh’s fringe festival, several will sound strangely familiar. It might be the accent, the style of delivery or even the pace of the joke-telling that eventually gives away the identity of these performers.
The sons and daughters of some of the country’s best-known comedians are establishing themselves in their own right on the festival scene. And this Edinburgh will see stronger evidence than ever of a growing stream of second-generation talent.
My sense of humour was born out of my mother’s vocal gymnastics and my dad’s desire to needle people
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