***I’ve never done it before but for the first time I thought I’d walked into the wrong show. As I arrived at The Hive I was greeted by a small woman in a massive wig pretending to be Dolly Parton... more
Reviews
****We all know about the “dead dad” shows in Edinburgh by now don’t we? The sad ones that tug at battle-hardened award judges heart strings? Well, Steve Hall’s show Zebra takes the opposite approach... more
***There has been an intriguing resurgence in interest in the early days of alternative comedy in recent years. Stewart Lee has namechecked various veteran acts, Alexei Sayle has gone back onstage... more
It’s clear from this year’s doorstep Fringe booklet that mental illness is going to be one of the recurrent themes of the Edinburgh Festival. Bryony Kimmings, who gave this year’s Welcome Address to... more
Maybe I was out when the trumpets were blowing but it seemed to me that Would I Lie To You? slipped back onto BBC1 on Friday night for its ninth, yes, ninth, series without much of a fanfare. Which... more
Here’s a trade secret about book reviewers. I don’t think they always read every sentence of every book they write about. I wanted to make a point of reading Bridget Christie’s first book from intro... more
I don’t think Taskmaster is the first Edinburgh Fringe show to turn into a TV panel game but I’m pretty sure it is the first Edinburgh Fringe show that I’ve taken part in that ended up as a panel... more
The third instalment in Matt Berry’s online series finds our seductive-toned narrator guiding us through his version of the history of summer holidays. Or to be more precise, the “UKAY summer holiday... more
Physical comedy duo Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez, best known as Pajama Men, have been such a brilliantly talented, thrilling, inventive live act I’ve always wondered how they would translate to the... more
I won’t go into too much detail about James Acaster’s Latitude set because it was clearly an excerpt from his forthcoming Edinburgh show, Represent. I will say for starters though that if you are... more
