Maybe it’s just my age, but the Fringe doesn’t seem to be the same drink-fuelled, twenty-four-hour hedonistic party that it once was. When I first played the festival in the early nineties, it seemed that everybody was drinking until four in the morning at the Gilded Balloon’s legendary Late ‘n’ Live before heading over to […]
Edinburgh Fringe
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 […]
Some funny tales but style triumphs over substance
John Kearns: Don’t Worry They’re Here (rating 3/5) In a fringe programme packed with comedians who seem to be defined by who they have supported, or which TV shows they have guested on, John Kearns is something of a rarity. Kearns is playing sold out shows at one of the largest venues in the Pleasance […]
Fine start but musical loses its killer touch
Buried: A New Musical (rating 3/5) Promising to be ‘darkly comic’ Buried starts off well with a memorable, nicely sung number in which a female serial killer, Rose, goes through a series of first dates that all end in murder. She then meets Harry and the two realise their similarities when they attempt to kill […]