Fringe, Part Three

Tonight was the last night of the Edinburgh Fringe, so here’s one last round of comedy reviews. I don’t enjoy naming and shaming one or two star shows, so I’ve omitted my least favourite (polished performers who’d previously been nominated for awards, but the jokes just weren’t there). Fortunately, most of the shows we saw this year were good, and two of them—Josie Long and Mark Watson—won well-deserved awards at the Perrier successors, the appallingly named if.comeddies. (I’d been telling friends that they were two of my favourite performers this year—both of them lively, warm and engaging—even though I rated each of their shows a four here. I reserve my fives for shows that have me laughing uncontrollably, which can be tough on those that are only consistently very good.)

Read More · 28 August 2006 ·

Fringe, Part Two

A few more reviews.

Read More · 17 August 2006 ·

Fringe, Part One

The Fringe is well underway, so I should say a few words on the dozen shows we’ve seen so far. A few is about right: I’ve been doing those four-word reviews for The Times where they send out a text after the show and you text back your review. It’s surprisingly difficult to say much in four words; again and again I’ve wanted at least five or six, if only to include a “but”. Here are the ones I’ve sent them over the past week, with ratings from 1-5...

Read More · 13 August 2006 ·

Utter, Utter B’Stard

Went along to see Rik Mayall’s revival of The New Statesman, The Blair B’Stard Project, on Friday night. I didn’t go expecting greatness, and it wasn’t, but it was perfectly fine entertainment, and worth it just to see Mayall in the flesh, mugging his heart out. The highlight was a prolonged burst of nuclear-scale swearing at the opening of the second act, which is hardly the stuff of timeless theatre, but this was Rik Mayall. If you figure that half the ticket price is for the show itself and half for the experience of seeing in the flesh one of the comic legends of the past twenty-five years, then it represents excellent value.

Read More · 11 June 2006

But enough about me. Let’s hear about Eugene. Eugene Mirman, that is, a New York comedian who has a highly entertaining website and blog, a new album coming out, and an appealing way with email hecklers. Don’t miss the eight-minute mp3 on the Show and Tell page, or the Legal Disclaimer and Privacy Policy.

27 April 2006

Radio 4’s News Quiz is one of the staples of our household, and whenever Linda Smith was on the panel we knew it would be a good one. She was one of the funniest people in Britain, and it’s far too early to be reading her obituary.

1 March 2006 ·

Ed hits the com-lit-audioblog jackpot interviewing Dave Barry, who’s sounding pretty chilled about post-columnist life.

6 February 2006 ·

Learn more about E-Learning, Politics and Society with Edinburgh University’s online MSc in E-Learning.

←Comedy in 2005