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Before the Fringe started I wrote a preview of Lewis Schaffer and said something like “the good gigs are worth seeing, the bad gigs are utterly, uniquely compelling.” This was one of the good ones. Drop that dead donkey, for Edinburgh 2015 the Nunhead-based New Yorker has actually written a genuinely interesting show.
Are critics reviewing the performance we see or the performance that should be taking place? It’s an issue that has troubled me for a while and came to a head this week when I reviewed James Acaster. I called him a “comic genius” so somebody quite fairly asked me why I had only given him four stars rather than five.
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I’ve never done it before but for the first time I thought I’d walked into the wrong show. As I arrived at The Hive I was greeted by a small woman in a massive wig pretending to be Dolly Parton and loudly handing out ping pong balls. I wasn’t sure but I thought I’d go with it and sat down. It was only when a boob-shaped balloon floated above my head that I realised I was in the right place.
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We all know about the “dead dad” shows in Edinburgh by now don’t we? The sad ones that tug at battle-hardened award judges heart strings? Well, Steve Hall’s show Zebra takes the opposite approach. It’s about the joys of being a dad. It might not win him any awards but there is plenty here to bring a smile to your face.
Showstopper! The Improvised Musical is to get its first full West End run. In the cult impro show audience suggestions are transformed instantly into all-singing, all-dancing shows with unpredictable and hilarious results. It will run at the Apollo, Shaftesbury Avenue, from September 24 to November 29.
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There has been an intriguing resurgence in interest in the early days of alternative comedy in recent years. Stewart Lee has namechecked various veteran acts, Alexei Sayle has gone back onstage and the death of Rik Mayall also prompted a re-assessment of the era that comedy almost forgot.
Comedy fans can now vote to choose three more finalists for the Magners New Comedy Act 2015.
George Rigden from Bristol, Lolly Adefope from London and Ingrid Dahle from Brighton have already been selected for the final after a show in Bristol.
There are another three places to be chosen from the following acts.
Following the popularity of last year's commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Hancock's Half Hour, Kevin McNally is back as the lad 'imself, with the recording of five more episodes of Hancock's Half Hour that have been lost from the archives and not heard since the 1950s. The next recording takes place on September 8, details below.
Comedians Nick Helm, James Acaster, Nish Kumar and Marcus Brigstocke are among the performers appearing in a new unrehearsed show about heterosexual female sexuality at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Manwatching is described as "a funny, frank, and occasionally explicit insight into heterosexual female desire, read out loud by a man."
As double acts go this is an unusual one. Bryony Kimmings is a performance artist, comedian and maker of experimental theatre. Her partner onstage in Fake It ’Til You Make It is Tim Grayburn, a high flying account manager at an advertising firm.
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