Comedy
| 29 August 2009
Underbelly
6-30 August (ex. 19), 22.20
On a mission of mercy (early cross-channel pun narrowly avoided), swarthy, sneering French flâneur Marcel Lucont has boozed and smoked his way to Edinburgh, so that we, the ever-foolish Brits, might learn how better to live, eat, and treat our snowmen.
| 29 August 2009
Underbelly
6-30 August (ex. 19), 14.30
Performing surreal sketch comedy to a late lunch crowd must be tough, but I guess my function isn’t to sympathise.
| 29 August 2009
Gilded Balloon
5–31 August (ex. 12, 19), 15.45
Triona Adams, despite a high flying job in London and the cash, parties and glitz that went with it, decided to become a Nun. This is the dream of every little Catholic girl. What is in the dreams of every Catholic boy then? Probably something to do with nuns as well…
| 29 August 2009
Stand Comedy Club
7–30 August, 22.50
Cochrane performed at the Assembly Halls last year, and seemed out of place in a venue sprouting neo-classical architecture right left and centre. Appearing this year at the Stand – a venue about beer, laughter and little else – he seems much more at home.
| 29 August 2009
Stand Comedy Club
7–30 August (ex. 17), 20.35
Eastern philosophy has attracted a great deal of western interest in the last 50 years. From Tao mysticism to Feng Shui the intellectual mists of the orient have gently crept into every middle class living room in Britain, and now sit unread on coffee tables everywhere.
| 29 August 2009
The Beehive Inn
5-30 August (ex. 8, 17, 24), 20.00
“Tough crowd,” comments Bruce Fummey uneasily a couple of times during his set, which is dedicated to the Scots in all their scrappy, sheep-shagging glory. It’s not necessarily that the crowd is tough, more that we’re listening politely – surprising, given that most of us in the room turn out to be Scots ourselves.
| 29 August 2009
Pleasance Courtyard
5-31 August (ex. 17, 18, 24), 20.15
Idiots of Ants return to Edinburgh for a third year of anarchic, brilliant sketch comedy, poking fun at everything from lame dad jokes to clichéd war movies and everything else in between.
| 29 August 2009
The Assembly Rooms
6-31 August, 19.30
The Pajama Men are this festival's unmissable double act. Masters of both physical and verbal comedy, Shenoad Allen and Mark Chavez perform with flawless flair in their new show, 'Last Stand to Reason'.
| 29 August 2009
Assembly @ Assembly Hall
8-30 August, 20.40
That the venue for ‘God Collar’ is Edinburgh’s College of Divinity is an irony that Marcus Brigstocke is quick to appreciate. To be honest, most ironies are. The Radio 4 comedian spins a clever, original show that puts a surprisingly fresh slant on the well-worn God-for-gags tradition.
| 29 August 2009
Gilded Balloon Teviot
5-31 August, 15.00
With wits and bodies electrically charged, 'The Imps' enter stage left with an energy and enthusiasm to which no synonym of 'youthful' can do justice. They immediately melted an audience frozen with fear at the mention of the dreaded 'I' word (interaction, not Israel).
| 28 August 2009
The Bongo Club
14-30 August (ex. 24), 20.40
Amstell is honest and mocking of his own insecurities here, showing he can take what he dishes out.
| 28 August 2009
Pleasance Courtyard
5-30 August, 21.45
The title is quite the give away for the character of this show. Langford oozes a mournful quality that unsurprisingly doesn’t do much enthusing this Monday night. Langford is clearly a sensible man. He’s cautious, he’s awkward and by his own admittance, he doesn’t bode well in large groups of people. Aren’t we all glad he’s on stage then.
| 27 August 2009
Assembly @ George Street
6–30 August (ex. 17, 25), 20.50
Why are the Irish so universally revered throughout the world? Why is it that I can climb to the highest pub in the Alps and find an Irish themed bar sitting next to it? What possible reason do the citizens of Rome or Berlin have for Irish drinking establishments? It’s surely down to more than their uncanny ability at dispersal and drinking.
| 27 August 2009
Pleasance Courtyard
26–29 August, 13.00
We tend to associate character comedy with the very obvious personalities, such as Borat or Bruno. Al Murray, Pub Landlord is a more subtle beast. Like the recent political satire, In the Loop, we have to disassociate Murray with reality, no matter how close his character acting is to it.
| 27 August 2009
Assembly @ George Street
6–31 August (ex 24, 17), 21.00
America is a place of contradictions; of religious zealots and militant secularists, staunch conservatives and open-minded liberals.
| 27 August 2009
Underbelly’s Cow Barn
27–31 August, 19.25
There are two aspects to the magic of Firman’s show this year. Firstly the tricks themselves which are, at times, very good, and secondly how he manages to muster his sex appeal from beneath the brown seventies suit and greasy mane. Though he struts about the stage performing magic from the classics to more advanced guinea pig eating antics, Firman is more about the laughs than gasps.
| 27 August 2009
Pleasance Courtyard
26–31 August, 18.40
‘It’s the same joke over and over again’ Brackenby screams at forty minutes in. It is indeed, and even after this comment, the joke carried on. It’s never good to hear the exact nature of a show before seeing it but, I warn, this review may be quite thorough.
| 27 August 2009
Free Fringe @ Madogs
5th-29th August, 16.00
Expectations are considerably lower for comedy at the Free Fringe, which Yapp himself acknowledged at the end of his set, promising he’d saved the classy material for his paying gig which we were urged to attend later that day. Needless to say, no one went.
| 27 August 2009
Pleasance Courtyard
5-30 August, 20.40
Only entering the Fringe circuit in 2007, Flanagan’s approach is still fresh and he avoids the cliché Fringe jokes and nonchalance that befalls many veterans.
| 27 August 2009
The GRV
7-30 August (ex.19, 26) 19.00
It is made clear from the offset that James Sherwood does not like guitars. In fact he hates them so much, and with such a passion, that he can tell you the note they resound with when kicked (E minor 7 plus A).
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