It is never easy being the last act on the bill in a comedy competition, but Steve Bugeja won the BBC Radio New Comedy Award in 2013 when he closed the show. His performance was so striking he felt like a headlining act rather than another competitor. He is not doing anything particularly radical, his neurotic style is geeky in a self-mocking Mark Watsonish way, but Bugeja showed a maturity and confidence that clearly impressed the judges.
Katherine Ryan has added an extra date to her Edinburgh Fringe run after all the original dates sold out. She is the first comic to sell out her 2015 run. Ryan is at The Stand from August 6 - 22 and has now added a show at the Pleasance Beyond on Wednesday August 12 at 9.30pm.
Acclaimed comedian Daniel Sloss has announced a new 35-date UK tour starting on September 18 and ending on December 5. The tour follows a run at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre during the Fringe and will be called Dark, in honour of the fact that the 24-year-old is sick of being described by people as dark.
Satirist Matt Forde has a problem. Just as he mastered his Ed Miliband impression Ed went and got wiped out at the election. Forde now has to master either Andy Burnham, Jeremy Corbyn or put on a skirt. Luckily he also has his wits to fall back on. So even if the voices aren’t quite right the jokes usually are. Forde’s profile has risen rapidly in the last year. The former flatmate of Jon Richardson has appeared with his old mate on his C4 series about growing up and has also become a regular wingman for Rory Bremner.
Comedian Simon Brodkin, better known as Lee Nelson, managed to get to the front of the FIFA press conference today. He made a quick speech and showered President Sepp Blatter in $600-worth of bank notes before being led away.
Just before he was escorted offscreen he said something about the money being for the World Cup in North Korea in 2026. Blatter responded by saying "this has nothing to do with football" and postponed the press conference until the table was cleared up.
I wasn’t going to review Jason Byrne. I felt that I’d seen it all and said it all when he ended Kilkenny’s Cat Laughs gig with a jockey on his back earlier this year. But within a minute of him charging onstage I had my pen out again. Once more Byrne went where few comedians dare to go.
Comedians are such a sensitive bunch. How do you describe someone as a safe pair of hands without them taking it as a negative criticism? A safe pair of hands is exactly what Jason Manford is, but this is meant as the highest of compliments. After three days when some comedians had died horrible sweaty deaths onstage and others had pushed the boundaries of their craft and divided audiences Manford closed the comedy arena with an assured set that pretty much entertained everyone.
There seems to be no stopping the inexorable rise of clowning on the Fringe. Ever since Dr Brown won the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2012 I feel as as I have been inundated by press releases mentioning acts who have trained with esteemed French tutor Philippe Gaulier, who teaches performers to unleash their inner idiot. I don't know if Australian physical comedian Trygve Wykenshaw has done a stint with Gaulier but he has certainly found his inner idiot, prancing around like a loon, sometimes naked, sometimes in a skin-tight costume.
She might have been on in the middle of the afternoon rather than headlining, but a roar went up when Sara Pascoe was introduced. The thoughtful comedian has become a regular face on television over the last year and her fanbase has grown dramatically. And it looks like growing even more after this crowdpleasing set.
Trust me, that is Jon Richardson on the screen in the distance in this picture, even if he is looking unusually muscular. One of the perennial problems of the comedy tent at Latitude is that it is too bloody popular. By the time headliner Richardson came on you were lucky to get a view of him onscreen sitting outside the tent. On the plus side the sun was shining and the sound was crystal clear.
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