Venue: 32 Below Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ When shows are listed as works in progress, it can be easy to taper expectations. However, as Adele Cliff bounds on-stage and slips right into the groove, it’s hard to justify giving other comedians so much leeway, such is her ability to make the audience crack up. Cliff, the current […]
Venue: The Counting House Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Some one-liner comedians prioritise quantity over quality, delivering an hour of half-chuckles and near-silent sniggers instead of producing the sort of laughter that makes your stomach clench like it’s a ketchup bottle and you’re trying to get the last few drops out. In My Life’s a Joke!, Will Mars […]
Venue: 32 Below Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ As a half-bustling Fringe draws to a sunny close, it can start to feel like comedians are telling the same jokes about their ages, sex lives, and Oedipus complexes. White Chicks 2, a pair of stand-up sets starring the very not-white Alex Bertulis-Fernandes and Sharlin Jahan, seeks to buck the […]
Venue: Underbelly @ George Square Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ At 18.45, Tom Stade strides purposefully onto the stage to rapturous applause, before making a joke about his style of comedy not exactly being conducive to an early evening, midweek slot. Every other word is sandwiched between a ‘fuck’, and the family with two children under seven sitting […]
Venue: Summerhall – Online Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ At times Rajesh and Naresh, a small-budget, big-hearted stage play, threatens to sparkle. However, the 65-minute show is clearly constrained by the screen it appears on; the emotional resonance is somewhat deadened by the fact it’s an online-only show, an inescapable hurdle the producers have only partially navigated. With […]
Venue: The Counting House Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ In a sweltering Counting House room full of punters who can barely handle their booze, Sasha Ellen comes to the stage with the ‘face of somebody who both teaches and goes to primary school’. Perhaps it’s this early mention of authority figures that keeps the audience from misbehaving too […]
Venue: Maggie’s Chamber in Laughing Horse @ The Free Sisters Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Maggie’s Chamber is cavernous compared to some Fringe venues, so it takes a brave comedian to try and fill it with laughs. Luckily, if you do get a ticket for Pick of the Fringe, you’ll see three or four different acts (plus a […]
Venue: The Counting House Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ Old Jewish Jokes is exactly what it says it is, and yet, despite being a hundred percent sure of the contents of the show, there are times you might feel let down by this well-rehearsed Edinburgh favourite. Ivor Dembina’s show was awarded Pick of the Fringe in 2019, so […]