Phil Kay is a comedy legend. Period. Do I really need to say more? The madcap Scot has always done things his own way, occasionally rubbing shoulders with the mainstream but never compromising. He... more
Previews
Most of the Edinburgh previews I’ve been picking out have been names that will be familiar to comedy buffs. I’ve not seen Mel Moon before but her back story sells her show to me. Moon has a condition... more
Last time I saw Marcus Brigstocke in Edinburgh it nearly didn’t happen. He was demonstrating one of the moves he used to do as a dancer in his pre-stand-up days and he fell down and injured his leg.... more
Felicity Ward was one of the first comedians to make a splash on The John Bishop Show. I tuned in expecting the usual Saturday night supermarket checkout/airport security blandness and instead got... more
One of the enduring paradoxes of the stand-up comedian is that one often plays it low status when one is actually quite high status. It’s an intriguing phenomenon, this alpha male/female nerd schism... more
You can’t just do a sketch show with just sketches these days. You have to do it backwards. Or each member has to do their own separate show at the same time. Or the audience has to do the sketches... more
There’s an old showbiz anecdote about the trajectory of stardom that goes something like this: “Who is X? Get me X. Get me a cheaper X. Get me a younger X. Who is X?” In this case X is probably Tim... more
Why do buses turn up in threes? Why does your phone signal always cut out just as a conversation gets interesting? Why isn’t John Robins a big star yet? These are the kind of mysteries that keep me... more
The other day somebody tweeted that I had written that Liam Williams’ last show Capitalism was my number one comedy show of 2014. I didn’t say that, The Guardian’s Brian Logan did. But I do think... more
Comedian Luke Toulson talked to me last year about the difficulties he had of finding places to do Edinburgh previews. This year he has taken the matter by the scruff of its neck and set up his own... more
