Lolly Adefope was already on my list of people to tip for Edinburgh, honest, and then last night she made it through to the final of the inaugural Magners Comedy Act 2015. A the final Adefope will be... more
Previews
It’s tempting to put performers into a box. I was thinking about that when I wrote about Joseph Morpurgo and the same applies to David Elms. I first came across Elms at the Musical Comedy Awards in... more
I’ve never quite been able to get a handle on Joseph Morpurgo because he has done so many different brilliant things. All I’m sure about is that he is prodigiously talented. He must be because he... more
Phil Kay is a comedy legend. Period. Do I really need to say more? The madcap Scot has always done things his own way, occasionally rubbing shoulders with the mainstream but never compromising. He... more
Most of the Edinburgh previews I’ve been picking out have been names that will be familiar to comedy buffs. I’ve not seen Mel Moon before but her back story sells her show to me. Moon has a condition... more
Last time I saw Marcus Brigstocke in Edinburgh it nearly didn’t happen. He was demonstrating one of the moves he used to do as a dancer in his pre-stand-up days and he fell down and injured his leg.... more
Felicity Ward was one of the first comedians to make a splash on The John Bishop Show. I tuned in expecting the usual Saturday night supermarket checkout/airport security blandness and instead got... more
One of the enduring paradoxes of the stand-up comedian is that one often plays it low status when one is actually quite high status. It’s an intriguing phenomenon, this alpha male/female nerd schism... more
You can’t just do a sketch show with just sketches these days. You have to do it backwards. Or each member has to do their own separate show at the same time. Or the audience has to do the sketches... more
There’s an old showbiz anecdote about the trajectory of stardom that goes something like this: “Who is X? Get me X. Get me a cheaper X. Get me a younger X. Who is X?” In this case X is probably Tim... more
