I sometimes wonder what it is that draws reviewers to Edfringe Review: is it the dizzying, unwelcoming site navigation that makes you want to leave immediately, or is it the gaudy T-shirts that let everyone know there is a REVIEWER in the house? Or perhaps it’s their habit of reviewing everything twice to give a […]
Jonny Sweet describes Phil Nichol as “like a precocious schoolkid who’s guzzled too many Dip Dabs before the bell and is now showing off in front of his classmates”. It’s a charge that can be levelled at Sweet himself, for although his reviews bounce from point to point like a likeable swot reading his book […]
There’s no affectation to Eve Livingston’s reviews; they’re straight as an arrow hewn out at the Rolls Royce machineworks. The quality isn’t far off either. If Livingston has one fault it’s perhaps her conviction that she has to comment on every bit of the show; not quite blow by blow but certainly every major movement. […]
There are some toys at FringePig who seem to think that that theatre-hags and cabaret-whores and music-prostitutes and childrens’-show…erm… whatever class of degenerate they are… should stick to hanging around in their own fleshpots. I’ve never really agreed, and so it is my pleasure to present the amazing, multi-faceted, quadruple-headed Jon Stapley. A good few […]
Tom Bragg, the magazine’s podcast editor, is not your usual Three Weeks hack, by which I mean he has very apparent writing skills and applies them skilfully to the publication’s puff format. I think I speak for my colleagues when I say that, when reviewing reviewers, it’s usual for us to glance at the stars […]
Last year, Arianna Reiche did a typically Fest thing: slating Al Lubel when almost everyone else thought he was quite magnificent. The critic two-starred her fellow American for being too confessional about his drawn-out toilet training. Yes, an American told another American that he was sharing too much. Weird shit happens at the Fringe. She […]
There’s something about Hamish Clayton that’s a little bit creepy. He puts you in mind of Prince Joffrey, or Caligula as played by Malcolm McDowell, so quickly do his apparent affections and sympathies turn to menace. “It must be remembered that this is a free show and should be judged accordingly. It is certainly better […]
Most of The Arts Desk’s Fringe comedy reviews were written by Veronica Lee in 2013, and it’s fair to say that she is a very thorough reviewer. Clearly this reviewer sees comedy AS art, and despite its lack of Arts Council funding I wouldn’t like to dissuade her. It explains her appraisal – practically a […]
We assume that this name is ersatz, since we are very clever here at Fringepig and I know that RM Ballantyne was a Scottish children’s author in Victorian times, who wrote such ripping yarns as The Coral Island, forerunner to the altogether more dystopian Lord of the Flies. Of course, I could be wrong. It […]
Of all the reviewers to get cross with Carl Hutchinson for having a show about nothing much, Pete Kelly gets the crossest. “There should be a Fringe award for flimsiest premise in a stand-up show,” he growls. “[His show] conforms to the current orthodoxy that an hour of stand-up must conclude with a trite moral […]
Paul Fleckney is the main man at London Is Funny, so you would hope his reviewing skills are strong. Well, they’re not at all bad: he takes his time, breaks down each aspect of what he sees and peppers the whole thing with some nice little phrases: “Partridge-esque overtures” and “speech patterns traight from the […]
Mary! You must stop using so many exclamation marks! I mean, I’m glad that you’re enjoying yourself! But it makes me doubt the veracity of what you say when you’re so damn excitable! So, with the caveat that the time to use an exclamation mark in literature is NEVER, unless you are creating a comic […]
John-Paul Stephenson had his work cut out at last year’s Fringe, where he was keeping the Gigglebeats reviewing boat afloat by himself. With that in mind he did a pretty good job all in all. Taking himself to some things that were off the beaten track, and several of the Free Fringe/Free Festival offerings, he […]
Carrie Gooch seems unwilling to come to terms with the fact that she has accepted the role of critic, and so must hit us with her unmitigated opinions, and pass off these opinions as objective truth. It’s a great responsibility: too much, arguably, for a mere mortal – and yet that is what the job […]
Bruce Dessau is a strange sort of fish. Comedians of every stripe (that’s woolly liberal to militantly liberal, if we’re honest) want to court his favour and his opinions, even though everything he is and everything he can bestow was sprung from the wellspring of Lord Dacre’s bumhole. I used to wonder why this didn’t […]