Cayley James is in no doubt that she knows what comedy is, and what must be done to make it better. When she commands that “The Fringe needs more comedians of colour – the overwhelmingly white programme doesn’t lack quality but it does lack perspective,” it surely did not even occur to her that this […]
There’s not much wrong with Joe Spurgeon. So I’ll start with as much wrong as I can find. I disagree with his too-frequent two-star allocations. But then, I would. And I wish he would stop mithering on about shows that don’t have a message or a denouement. It’s almost funny when he complains that Chris […]
I don’t know why this reviewer has awarded himself divinity. Perhaps he bears a passing resemblance to John Waters’ favourite drag queen. Perhaps – even more than all the other reviewers – this one believes himself appointed to pass God’s infallible judgment upon Fringe entertainment. Whatever the reason, it comes as a disappointment that his […]
Sadly for David O’Connor, clicking on his name takes you to the Three Weeks theatre critic Dave Fargnoli. It’s almost as if Three Weeks is losing track of its million pickpocket street children. When you’ve read more than a hundred Three Weeks reviews you start to wonder why they even bother recruiting these youngsters anymore. […]
Fringe veterans – particularly antipodeans – probably remember Barrie Morgan – he was the hero of Barrie Morgan’s World of Organs, the Australian sitcom and Fringe show. True, we have no evidence that it’s the same Barrie Morgan. In fact we desperately hope it isn’t. Just imagine being in something that creatively bonkers and then […]
This reviewer has, apparently, “been a fan of the Fringe ever since the age of 14, after stumbling upon it during a long journey from Argyll to England”. One senses that something is missing from this story, such as “as his mother desperately scoured the country for a school where he wouldn’t be bullied”. Perhaps […]
Mathew Tansini writes as if he knows a lot about comedy. His convictions are such that, if you knew less about comedy than Tansini, you might well be taken in. But to know less than Tansini you would need to be from a place that doesn’t understand stand-up comedy, like Afghanistan or the Isle of […]
It’s always difficult reviewing reviewers who are bed-and-breakfasting in comedy when it’s clearly not their specialism. Blacksell spent the 2013 Fringe reviewing music, but then reviewed one comedy show – Alistair McGowan. Why? Because “back in the day, Alistair McGowan’s Big Impression was a firm family favourite in our house”. Right then. So I expect […]
I really cannot say anything about Joe Walsh that would sum him up better than his own sweet words. Take this: “It’s not important that a show hosted by Jo Caulfield is essentially starting at the bottom of a steep hill, as stimulating as her observational comedy and mundane audience interaction are.” So, you’re starting […]
Isobel Steer needs to decide what she likes; what she is passionate about in comedy, and then decide whether the things she is looking at match up to what she likes. At the moment she’s trying too hard to cover all bases and is watching comedy with a detached disengagement that doesn’t quite work. Thus, […]
Elizabeth Jewell considers herself a ‘word nerd’, and while most of her words are all right, her grammar is all over the place. She has a particular penchant for sticking commas in where they’re not wanted, which makes her sentences quite jarring. Sometimes her enthusiasm gets the better of her phrasing, with the result that […]
Corry Shaw is a strange person. I hope I’m not stretching my brief here; I am aware I need to assess the reviewer, not their personality. But Corry Shaw is a perplexingly odd character and this oddity explains the nature of her reviews. At the 2013 Fringe she reviewed one thing, The Barnes Identity, which […]
“Sometimes it seems that words simply cannot do justice to the atmosphere of a performance,” gasps Ankur Shah about Adam Strauss’s The Mushroom Cure. Well have a go, Shah, cos that’s what we’re paying you for! Well, nobody’s paying you, obviously. It’s Three Weeks. But still, have a go. I rather like Shah’s style, at […]
Sarah Richardson is a queen of damning her victims with the faintest praise possible. “Still, for a free show, you could do worse,” she signs off her review of Gareth Morinan. Of Ivor Dembina she says: “If old Jewish jokes are your thing, why go anywhere else?” Of a comedy cabaret troupe she actually likes, […]
Sarah McIntosh goes by the Twitter handle ‘domesticharpie’, and her mugshot is of herself and her progeny. I was hoping, therefore, that this mummy-critic would provide a different angle on things to the usual Fringe teennybopper, and on the whole I think she achieves that – not least because she allows her children to add […]
Sam Waddicor needs to clean up his grammar and his spelling if he’s going to write for Broadway Baby – goodness knows they’re not going to do it for him. Some passages of his reviews just leave you scratching your head. “His most successful moments were probably his impressions of various tapes” he says of […]