Paul Merton’s Impro Chums (Rating 4/5) Returning to the Fringe after a one-year absence, Paul Merton’s Impro Chums is the show you can rely on even though it changes every evening. The trick is to have the best improv comics in the business, and Merton’s long-established reputation mean that’s a given. He’s joined by Lee […]
Andy Moseley
Smith delivers fantastic tribute to his late father
Arthur Smith : Syd (Rating 5/5) Every comedian apparently has a ‘dead dad show’ in them, and this is Arthur Smith’s, but as you would expect from a comedian of Smith’s standing it’s different from any dead dad show you’ll have seen before. The show is not Smith’s reflections on what the death of his […]
A rich production played with great finesse
The Marilyn Conspiracy (rating 4/5) It’s more than 50 years since Marilyn Monroe died and the manner of her death continues to be the subject of speculation. Was it really suicide, or was there something more sinister going on? Her connections with John and Robert Kennedy, and their subsequent deaths only adds to the rumour mill, […]
Comedy routine that shows no sign of ageing
Lucy Porter: Pass It On (rating 4/5) Lucy Porter is a comedian who knows her audience. Now officially a fringe veteran, she continues to draw large crowds and keeps her audience fully emerged in her reflections on day to day domesticity, the changes that middle age brings and how it will seem like a golden […]
McAllister blends pathos and humour to good effect
The Bench (rating 4/5) When is a bench not a bench? The answer, according to one of the characters in this play, is when it’s a memorial to his wife Maggie. For the other, it remains a bench where he can sit and collects his thoughts. From this simple premise, a more nuanced story unfolds, but […]