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For audience members new to the openly gay Paul Foot, the sight of this foppish, wiry, straggly-haired man bounding onto the stage might come as something of a surprise.  His appearance and mannerisms immediately leave no one in doubt as to the unconventionality of his act.  Imagine a combination of the refined and dignified courtiers of the seventeenth century, and the wild and gauche court jester gamboling amongst them.  It’s a nifty trick which only the most accomplished performer could hope to pull off.

For all its unpredictability, Foot is totally in control of his material.  He punctuates his set with digressions that have an improvisational quality; he interacts well with his audience, and knows exactly how far he can take them on any given flight of fancy. His desire to engage with ‘topical material’ doesn’t lead to a skit about the BP oil crisis, or the war in Afghanistan, but instead to a diatribe about shire horses, apparently on the decline in the UK.  Without giving too much away, it’s a brilliant set piece which will have you chuckling to yourself for days after.

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Half pint sized rising star of US indie comedy scene, Charlyne Yi, in her new show Dances on the Moon, uses her distinct take on stand-up to share stories and songs about the tricky topic of love.

Her intelligent, off the wall delivery is occasionally captivating and the banter with her audience is left-field to say the least. She tells us that she broke into the comedy world by performing at AA meetings, veteran’s homes and biker bars. Her wit is frequently delivered with a guitar and at one point, a harp.

The pre-recorded sequences, projected onto a huge screen above her is a highlight, but the set as a whole is a little uneven. There simply isn’t quite enough material, and much of it seems under-written.

Over-all, despite moments of real magic, this show is more likely to have you quietly chuckling, rather than laughing out loud. Never-the-less, you can’t help feeling that there’s more to come from Yi. There’s unrealised genius here.

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Tom Allen has been described as the posh, English, Craig Hill. The similarities are immediately apparent. Both are gay, deliver terrific audience repartee and both have very little, well, hair. Perhaps their most common trait is the Hill and Allen (not yet a double act) both use camp to charm the audience into laughing along at subject matters that would seem far too vulgar from the mouth of a more aggressive heterosexual.

Much of Allen’s routine appears improvised, as he digresses from story to story, responding to the whims of the crowd. He reads his audience well, and is quick to pick up on any comedy potential from the tiniest tit-bits they throw his way.

The scripted stuff is terrific too, mind you. Allen’s ability to find the eccentric in the seemingly mundane rivals Michael McIntyre. His routines on the defective disabled train toilet, finding poo on his front door step, and many others, weave in and out of the improvised material seamlessly. Everything fits.

I arrived at this show from the back of the queue, and as always in sold out comedy, the only seat available was in the front row. Reviewers should never sit under the mike – it’s unfair on the performer. When the inevitable altercation happened, it didn’t bother this comedian one little bit. Tom Allen is tough enough. And highly recommended.

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Proud gay Weegie, Scott Agnew, opens his gig by suggesting that folk from his own great city are the best at swearing in the world. Tales of the posh Glaswegian women who turned the air blue, the loud mouthed bus driver, and an altercation between a tramp and some Austrians outside a Glasgow pub – all serve to help convince us that he’s right. This is a strong and very funny start – but if you don’t like swearing then you should avoid this show. Agnew’s strongest argument that Glaswegians swear better is embodied by Agnew himself.

Naughty words aside, this is intelligent stuff, from a comedian that wants to make us think. He talks at length about his time as a journalist in a routine that was more interesting, even fascinating, than funny. But the laughs soon return with a hilarious piss-take on gay culture, fag-hags and gay dating site Gaydar.

The delivery is straight-forward and in your face. Our host is a story teller, and the heart of the tale is frequently more important than the punch line. The final routine had me holding back tears.

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Wilby’s nutty sexologist persona returns for a second year at the Fringe – and why not? The character comedian’s 2009 show, ‘The Science of Sex’ won great critical acclaim (and I should know – I was one of those acclaiming it).

The silly props are also back  in her quest to explain  gay, bi and straight sexuality. She utilizes balloons and other party paraphernalia – and a flip chart full of diagrams, graphs and (mostly made up) statistics.

She discusses her own sex life freely, and the trials of being a lesbian in particular. It is light hearted stuff for the most part, with an occasional aside or punch line so surprisingly close to the bone and controversial, I twice uncontrollably gasped.

Wilby’s comfortable in her role, but not afraid to drop out of it occasionally to banter with her rapt and admiring audience.

So what is the scientific origin of kissing? What does happen in the brain when you fall in love? I still don’t know, but you will fall for Wilby’s show, no matter where you sit on the Kinsey Scale.

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Hannah Gadsby is not happy with this  “youth, beauty and achievement” obsessed world. Given the choice between action and inaction, she’d rather have a sit down. Despite this, the Australian lesbian comic undertook  a 220 mile walk crossing England following Alfred Wainwright’s coast-to-coast trail.

Her inspiration for the walk, and this show, was fellow Aussie, Cliff Young – a potato farmer, who at the age of 61, won the 544 mile inaugural Sydney to Melbourne Ultra Marathon, back in 1983, “a pin up boy for tortoises all over the world.”

Gadsby’s style is downbeat and invariably self deprecating. Tonight’s show – seen very early in the run, had some ill-judged jokes at the expense of the disabled that jarred, in this otherwise fairly straightforward no-frills set. We were clearly meant to be laughing at her attitude towards the fellow walkers that she nick-named “Marco and Polio”, but the uncomfortable audience reaction was justified.

However, the frank talk about her own depression was illuminating, very funny and at times, inspired. And references to the “constant heckler in my head” were beautifully complimented by Lindsay, the constant heckler in the room. Gadsby’s quick witted skill in dealing with this chatterbox provided unscripted highlights – and made me wish she’d interact with the audience more.

Some tweaking should ensure Gadsby’s show fulfils its undoubted promise.  She’s clearly on her way up.

Review first published in SG:Fringe Magazine – August 2010

Do we ever learn? Ava Vidal wants to find out. This is a warm, friendly set, in a gig that frequently resembles a cosy chat in somebody’s front room, despite the subject matter.

At the top of her routine, she states that she had to go for a HIV test. Vidal then goes on to explain the circumstances which led to this nervy appointment at the clinic.

Her deadpan delivery masks the more edgy material, focused primarily on an Israeli boyfriend, and on her daughter, who one suspects is a little too much like her mother.

One highlight for me was the story of an encounter with an older gay man, after doing a free gig at one of the popular New Town Bar Sunday Fundraisers. The man’s statement that, “the trouble with gay men today is that they don’t take AIDS seriously,” is certainly true, but his insistence that, “not enough gay men are dying” seemed a rather odd remedy.

Vidal has an ability to turn the serious, profound, upsetting or downright ridiculous into laugh out loud comedy. This hour is entirely satisfying. And the safer sex message is still a worthy one.

Review first published in SG:Fringe Magazine – August 2010

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Former corporate lawyer, Susan Calman is now 35. “Statistically,” she exclaims, “that’s half my life over.” Tonight she focuses on her self-penned obituary, which she wrote whilst drunk. In a quest to discover whether anything in it is actually true, we are treated to an hour of hilarious self-deprecating stand-up.

Calman pokes fun at her height, at being Scottish, at being a lesbian, and being a rising star on TV and radio. I did wonder in advance of the show whether her sometimes ‘near-the-knuckle’ routines would suffer now Calman is more widely known. Not a bit of it, the Radio 4 listeners in this capacity audience were laughing along at her fanny like the rest of us.

The audience interaction was perhaps a little minimal, Her 2009 show, “The Last Woman on Earth” demanded much more participation – Calman is one of the quickest funny thinkers in the business. No matter, the laughs kept coming. Indeed, every skit, story and practically every line delivered funny stuff. Her rise through the ranks is on merit, and I honestly believe that it’s only a matter of time before she has her own TV show.

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One of America’s first openly gay comedians, Gomez is a beautiful and brash quick-fire comic of Puerto Rican heritage, living in San Francisco.

Her set consists of performing some terrific, intelligent, and occasionally quite rude stand-up routines, and enacting excerpts from some rather funny monologues.  She’s great with an audience, and succeeds in balancing her innate bullishness with a lovability which makes her impossible not to like.

The whole thing builds rather nicely to the final sketch, where she re-enacts a scene in Sphere – a Hollywood movie in which she had a bit part alongside Queen Latifah.

Gomez deserves more bums on seats.  Whilst the Zoo Southside suits theatre and dance, she isn’t performing in a comedy venue and ticket sales have clearly suffered.  Such a talent should be primetime at The Stand Comedy Club or one of the major fringe venues.

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The Colt 45 of the title refers to the lager Bethany Black used to drink too much of whilst growing up.  After a critically acclaimed fringe show last year, she returns to Edinburgh to deliver a surprisingly cheery tale of alcohol, drugs, co-dependency in relationships, and forgiveness.   This is autobiographical observational comedy which, for once, has a really interesting story at its heart.

Few of us can claim to be post-op transsexual goth lesbian comedians.  The key here however, is that Black touches on themes that connect with everybody.

Black could probably do with interacting with her audience a little more.  She occasionally goes drifting off into a world of her own – but no matter… her smiley demeanour – coupled with some well paced and strong gags, ensure that we laugh throughout.

With the resurgence of stand-up on TV, there is no reason at all why Bethany Black shouldn’t go all the way, unless the pea-brained prejudices of the current crop of TV execs get in the way.

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Anyone on the left will be familiar with Mark’s product.  He’s a campaigning, investigative journalist and writer – his books sit alongside Naomi Klein, John Pilger and Tony Cliff on the shelves of progressives.  But he is also a polished and professional stand up comedian, and so accessible to the masses.

In The Manifesto, he seeks to set a new political agenda by using policy suggestions from the audience.  At the end of the show the audience votes, and the winning policy – alongside those of the other thirteen shows – get to be debated with MSPs at a special event held at the end of the run. Fourteen shows.  Fourteen audiences.  Fourteen policies.  An innovative idea.

Mostly though, Mark and the audience are playing it for laughs. “Ban the Labour Party and other right wing groups”, and the winner for tonight: “Require the Daily Mail to print the following on every front page: ‘This is a fictional representation of the news.  Any resemblance to real life is purely coincidental’ ” are typical of the fare on offer from us, the audience.  Mark’s prepared material though, of which there is plenty, is exceptionally good stuff.  This is genuinely hysterical campaigning satire which finds the funny in the absurdity of capitalism – with multinationals, MPs, the police, Bob Geldolf and arms dealers all getting the treatment.  Where he is different – and better – than any other popular satirist around today, is that we are left with no doubt about WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT.

This show, laugh for laugh, has to be, for me, the best of the best on this fringe.  The fact that it’s also a call to arms has to mean that five stars aren’t enough.

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Shappi Khorsandi’s amiable, bumbling routine strikes the balance between political comedy and light entertainment perfectly.  This is a satirical show for the middle classes that don’t do politics or, as Khorsandi puts it, “people who aren’t really politics-ey.”

This gentle approach to injustice really works for her.  The audience lap it up, even when she’s fumbling from one unrelated subject to the next.  It’s only when she raises the issue of the recent election rigging in her native Iran that her inner activist gets a more explicit voice.

Tonight she deals with several over chatty audience members who, in lesser hands, could have derailed the show completely.  Rather than simply shut them up, she skilfully turns their talk to her advantage.

This is a very funny set, which is deceptively intelligent.  Only on reflection will you realise how much you have learned as well as laughed in this hour.

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The overused term ‘fringe favourite’ aptly applies to stand-up comedian and poet, Luke Wright. It’s not that he’s improved with age – his ability was clear when I first saw him around eight years ago – it’s that every year he has consistently produced strong and memorable shows.

In 2009 his theme is ‘petty concerns’, a self deprecating look at being a ‘nearly famous’ poet who, even though he knows it’s wrong, can’t help but ‘Google’ his own name when alone.There is plenty of comedy to be had from the outcome of these searches, in a set that would be strong if stand-up comedy were the sole attraction. The fact that the gags are interspersed with sharp, intelligent, often satirical self penned poems serves to enhance the show further.

For those that think poetry is boring, I challenge you to see Luke Wright and not be entertained.

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A teenage boy in the queue asks his mate if Rosie Wilby is really a lesbian.  “She’s too girly,” he explains, “she must be bisexual”.  Rather than dismiss this idiot, several soon-to-be audience members set about debating the issue. Horrified, but also aware that I actually have no idea where Wilby sits on the Kinsey Scale, I stay silent.  The show is called The Science of Sex, so perhaps the subject will come up.

Wilby, it turns out, is a rather attractive, and newly single lesbian.  She’s also a character comedian, and here we’re presented with a nutty professor persona, which is only just subtle enough to avoid the usual stereotype.  Using diagrams and pretty pictures, she jokes about sex with surprisingly few obvious knob (or indeed, fanny) gags.

Although clearly well researched and written, she isn’t afraid of a little audience interaction.  Indeed some of her off-the-cuff banter with a crazy family in the front row had me in stitches.  Everybody says that Wilby is ‘on the way up’ and has ‘bags of potential’.  I can only endorse that popular view.

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Hannah fell off her bike in the streets of Edinburgh the day before this performance, ending up with a serious bout of concussion.  Battling through with cups of tea so she could perform her show later that night at the Assembly, followed by a spot on Best of the Fest, the concussion started to kick its heals in.  With a mammoth headache and lack of eyesight, David O’Doherty and Adam Hills rushed Hannah to hospital in an ambulance, only to be told that she’d had “a wee nasty fall love.”

It was all too familiar an event to an accident prone Gadsby.  A large part of her show features stories of her falling over or riding into things.  She also discuses her upbringing, her hips and what it’s like to be a lesbian in Australia.

Gadsby’s deadpan, honest delivery really works.  Her jokes are multilayered and fresh.  At one point she loses her place, complaining of a headache, and starts eating an audience member’s ice-cream.  It’s the sign of a really great comedian that we don’t care – ’cos we’re too busy laughing.

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Oxford graduate Paul Foot doesn’t tell jokes, as much as have ideas.  He bumbles on the stage, sees a stool that apparently shouldn’t be there, and then with seemingly fumbling but brilliant pin-point accurate observational humour makes us all laugh about it for fifteen minutes.  I say all, perhaps I should say about two thirds of this capacity audience.  A sizable minority sat stony faced during, well, not just this routine but the entire show.

Foot’s appearance is ill-fitting and funny.  The clothes are wrong.  His hair defies description.  It’s quite old-fashioned, but the way he looks and indeed, everything he does, is designed to make you laugh.  The fact that some don’t get it simply makes it funnier.

Foot is our court jester for the 21st century. He’s the fool that knows so, so much much than those  he is fooling. This set is unlike anything else you will witness, even on the Edinburgh Fringe.  See it and you’ll either become a Paul Foot fan for life and join his growing band of connoisseurs, or you’ll be one of the smaller faction of nay sayers who just don’t get it.

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As the room falls into darkness, the introduction to Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Two Tribes is played to the capacity crowd.  An air attack warning, a siren, a high energy rhythm, and Susan Calman bounces on to the stage.

“We’re all stuck in here – if you leave the room, you will die,” she proclaims, “but it’s OK, I’m here to keep you entertained.”  Very quickly it becomes clear that, despite the apocalypse outside, the mood within this very socially mixed Underbelly audience is more than just okay.

Calman is attempting to rebuild our society by giving various audience members post apocalyptic roles.  Categories include ‘stud’, ‘worrier’ and ‘food’.  Calman’s skill is to enable the audience to participate, and occasionally make up their own jokes, whilst never losing control.

Rarely, if ever, have I observed an audience uniformly laugh so much and so hard.  Sitting at the front, I turn and look at each face in the room.  Not only is absolutely every person laughing, but they are falling about.  And they don’t stop for the entire hour.

Leading comedy critic Kate Copstick has apparently proclaimed that women aren’t capable of being as funny as men.  I beg to differ.

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Imagine the angry son of Amy Winehouse and Billy Connelly performing a drug fuelled episode of Still Game.  Scott Agnew is the antidote to Craig Hill’s light campery.  This is working class Scottish gay life.

Agnew takes us through his upbringing – growing up gay in Glasgow to a Catholic family.  He pulls no punches.  East End women, gangsters, tramps, chavs, rent boys and grandparents feature.  His storytelling is crisp, efficient and funny.  His characterisations are lively and real.

He’s also capable of some lovely one-liners and he’s more than comfortable departing from the script to banter with the audience. He’s a story teller – and it’s easy to imagine him with the locals honing his skills into the night – in the many Glasgow bars that are akin to Mos Eisley. That quick witted tongue has clearly seen him through a few scrapes.

All in all, Agnew is an immensely talented performer, who at just 27 isn’t just showing promise, but has surely already arrived.

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Sinha is a comedian of growing stature, making steady progress with his fringe audiences building year on year.  This year’s show focuses on how he, an Asian, gay ex-GP at the age of 39, has failed to find love, but seeks solace in quizzing.

The premise of this show must be one of the dullest on the fringe.

Sinha’s strength is in his jokes and their delivery.  The difficulty is that he seems as interested in telling stories that aren’t particularly interesting.  He rattles through it, with audience interaction pretty much non-existent.

However, like a good action flick, if we forget the unnecessary plot and focus on what we’re there for – in this case a damn good laugh – a lot of fun can be had.  His observational comedy is a match for Michael McIntyre, though probably owes more to Jack Dee.  His car accident routine was hilarious.

To be a great comedian one must be first and foremost funny.  Sinha is.  And when he stops trying to join all the dots in his story-telling he’ll be big.

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Buying a ticket to see Stephen K Amos this year is like purchasing a compilation CD when you’ve already downloaded most of the singles.  This was a  mix of old jokes, which, perhaps due to nostalgia, I enjoyed, and average and occasionally offensive filler material.

Comedy is comedy but does Amos really have to make a schoolboy ‘spastic’ face when he is describing mental illness or worse, stupidity?  Amos states at the top of the show that we’re all here to feel good and have a laugh.  Except those with disabilities, then?  Joking about race, sexuality, disability, religion is all fair game, but it depends on what the audience is laughing at.  This year he seems to have developed a similar attitude to class.  Cue more ‘spastic’ faces as he delivers jokes about the Leith area that are both unfunny and dated.

Although he focuses on his own life, he doesn’t ever let slip the fact he is gay.  He talks about his race a lot this hour, so why not mention his sexuality? Amos already came out on stage a few years ago. Why has he gone back in?

I have previously given this talented comic five star reviews.  Can I have that Stephen K Amos back please?  He really is so, so, so much better than this.  Feel good I do not.

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2009 marks the 40th anniversary of both the Stonewall Riots and the sad death of Judy Garland. And it’s 40 years since humans apparently landed on the moon.

To mark this luna event, talented and versatile character comedian Nick Mohammed presents us an array of real life characters, with very unreal characteristics. The non to bright Lancastrian Buzz Aldrin hosts, with a child like and camp Michael Collins, confused conspiracy nut Bart, and Laika (the first dog in space) playing supporting roles.

Mohammed’s comedy is charming, undemanding and non-confrontational.  Clearly well researched and rehearsed, this show is a technical master class when measured against average fringe fair.  A laugh-out-loud gag-a-thon it isn’t. For this show to have a wider appeal, Mohammed needs to tell more jokes.  It is likely, however, to make you smile pleasantly for an hour.

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Reggie is a laid back comedian with a cheeky grin, which doesn’t entirely disguise the edgy routine that he peddles to this grateful capacity audience.

His material is often based on jokes that build to a punch line that, when delivered, goes somewhere quite unexpected. For example, he explained, at length, why he isn’t gay. Using the stereotypical language of the homophobe, he confided that he likes men, but the thought of gay sex has always utterly repelled him. “…but then,” he concluded, “I didn’t used to like broccoli either.”

This comic device is popular with most stand-ups, and Reggie used it deftly to discus swearing, sex, women, race and even rape. This is self deprecating observational humour disguised as attack. He was described once as a black Bernhard Manning. This is preposterous. Hunter is much more intelligent and infinitely funnier. Where as Manning’s gigs could turn into BNP style rallies of hate, Hunter simply wants everyone to get along. I’d certainly be more than happy to go for a beer and a smoke with him.

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There is so much great comedy around this fringe, and lesbian comedian Zoe Lyons is part of that.  Her brand new show, Mangled Mantra of the Messed Up Modern Mind explores the daily chants that ricochet around her head.  Must recycle more….  but does she actually give a hoot about the environment?  As of tomorrow she must drink less…  but she doesn’t have a pension, so why bother?  Why does everyone try to make out they are more stressed than anyone else….  are we all trying to “stress to impress”?  Why do we all procrastinate?

Why are vegetarians?

But the jokes tick along nicely in a friendly and certainly very warm show.  And ladies… she’s hot!

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Underbelly/August 2008

Tina is running for the post of Commander in Chief of the USA this November, and so we are invited to a presidential election rally.  There are balloons, songs and an audience question and answer session along the way.  The night I attended, Edinburgh’s Loud and Proud Choir were present too.  At first I feared for them, thinking Christopher Green’s wit may make them the butt of a few easy gags, but not a bit of it.  In fact, they functioned pretty well as cheer leaders, backing singers and even had a few numbers of their own.

The difficulty with the show the night I was there was that the purple upside down cow (aka Udderbelly’s Pasture) was only partially full.  The show simply needed more from its audience.  This is entirely possible if you choose to go late in the run or at the weekends, when the show is sure to sell out.

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Internationally acclaimed, award winning stand up Shazia Mirza returns to the Edinburgh Festival this year with another funny show.  As in previous years it’s about her life – except now her picture has been hung in the National Portrait Gallery next to Nelson Mandella.  It’s that event that takes the shows premise.

Performing is a small hut, with tents on top, in the middle of a dreadful rainstorm, the first fifteen minutes of the show was improvised banter.  It’s usual for a comic to spend five minutes warming the audience with ‘where are you froms’ and ‘what do you dos’ but Shazia has enough experience to know that today’s soaking wet customers might need more heating than usual.  And it was all very funny too – this woman knows how to grab and keep control of a room.

Eventually we get to the show, a mixture of satirical one liners and longer ironic stories.  She held my, and everybody else’s, attention throughout. Maybe it was the rain, but I’m buggered if I can remember any of it.

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According to Lucy Porter, there are thousands of books out there advocating a return to basic values and the rejection of consumerism.  Self-help gurus that would have us into believing that we would be mentally better if we could only spend more time with our friends and families, and less time trying to achieve material success.

Are these people telling us the truth?  Is a life lived quietly and modestly for the good of others more satisfying than the coke-fuelled trolley-dash that constitutes the life of a modern reality TV star?  Psychologists seem to suggest that being a farmer with a big family is the key to utter bliss – “Have these people,” asks Porter, “ever watched Emmerdale or listened to The Archers?”

Porter shares her views on these and other matters, and her capacity audience laps it up.  She’s lovely, smiley and it has to be said, really rather cute.  Her delivery is laid back and relaxed, perhaps, occasionally a little too laid back for my tastes.  She’s clearly a very talented writer though, and her material is mostly top notch.  Her 70’s Radio Times letters page routine had me chuckling for ages.

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The Irishman returns for his twelfth consecutive year at the Edinburgh Fringe, and his third year in what I’m told is this year’s biggest fringe venue – the 800 capacity Assembly Hall.

During the show Byrne discuses the age gap between his two young sons.  He talks about moving home and DIY disasters.  He shares stories about his marriage and how he tries to please his wife in bed.  He also tells us of his visits to confession.

This is all familiar stand up stuff, executed very well.  Where he really shines, though, is when he gets the audience involved.  This is a master class in audience participation.  He plays with individuals without ever resorting to cheap abuse, indeed I was very happy to be at the receiving end of some of his funny stuff, and delighted to join him on stage for his own version of the Riverdance at the end.

Don’t ask me what the show’s title is about.

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Best known for his role as Saffy’s boyfriend in the classic comedy sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, and a stalwart on the comedy circuit selling out his own tours and sizable London venues like Bloomsbury Theatre and The Hackney Empire, Felix Dexter makes his second visit to the Edinburgh Festival with this – his brand new show.

Felix’s distinctive fusion of acutely observed characters and high energy satire has kept him at the top of his comedy game.  Not Just Another White Guy Lost In The Shuffle covers religion, Barack Obama, British culture (including 24 hour licensing laws), Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty, political correctness, new immigration, and the lighter topics like being upstaged by a Hollywood star, internet addiction, the Olympics and homophobia in the black community.

This is a faultless performance from a famous comedian who got to where he is today by merit. Go see!

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Ross is a gay ex-PE teacher, a football supporter from Glasgow, and a Dr Who fan. The self proclaimed “bookish English transsexual lesbian without a TV” sitting next to me in the audience might of struggled with his material, had she been in less deft hands.  His brilliance is that he had her laughing, even when the occasional cultural reference, not to mention his accent, clearly eluded her.

His secret is that he’s just impossible not to like.  When he ‘comes out’ as gay during his act, nobody cares cos we love him so much.  When he selects three straight guys from the audience and gets the rest of us to choose which he should date, everyone is delighted to play along.

The odd gag did fall flat, and some of the audience missed out on many of the interactive elements as we couldn’t always see the TV screen from the back row, but nevertheless, this is a strong show from a talented performer with a future.

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Shelley Cooper’s new show is part of the Free Fringe, but non-the-worse for that.  So, what does it mean to be British?

There are jokes aplenty, as the absurdity of ‘British Identity’ is put before us.  From the hypocrisy of John Major’s attempted ‘back-to-basics’ Victorian revival to the myth of the Great British Empire, she proffers her own inimitable definition of ‘culture’.  Why, as a race, do Brits struggle so vehemently with religion, race and ethnicity?  This is a fascinating and often funny journey from the Celts and Britons to Princess Diana via “a Queen who couldn’t get laid and a King who couldn’t speak English”.

Very much in the tradition of Rob Newman or early Ben Elton, Shelley’s observations are informed and satirical.  She does sometimes lose the audience with the sheer volume of detailed information and very occasionally a joke falls flat, but at best, Shelley Cooper is a force for comedy good that demands to be reckoned with.

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Underbelly/August 2008

For most of the festival last year, Bridget Christie’s The Court of King Charles II was a little known highlight for those lucky few that found it.  Then on the last week of the 2007 fringe, it received a clutch of great reviews (including one from my good self) and won the inaugural Funny Women Fringe Award.  So this year Charles II returns and you get the chance to see what you missed.

Notable figures of the 17th Century, like Christopher Wren, Samuel Pepys and Charles II himself, are lampooned with great inaccuracy.  The Great Plague is depicted using sounds and movement that can only be described as lunatic.  And then, as if to show her range, Christie plays an Appalachian dulcimer (a fretted stringed instrument from the 1800s) enacts stage sword fighting, and depicts a dog that ‘dances itself to death’.

All of this is executed with a cheeky smile and some lovely, off the cuff, deft banter.  It is all very silly, but the capacity audience is delighted to be sharing the joke with her.  Indeed, we all laughed pretty much non-stop for the entire hour.

LIVE COMEDY at the EDINBURGH FRINGE

Stuart Miles is a former presenter of Blue Peter and, by all accounts, a pretty good stand-up comedian. However, here at the Edinburgh Fringe, he has decided to inflict a half baked drag show on us.

We have the ‘outrageous’ Stella Ratner, High Street fashionista; Annette Curtan, a do-gooder with a prosthetic finger; Dr Noreen McAvity, a classically-trained vet turned top-flight cut-price cosmetic surgeon, and Ms Vera Singleton, sister of the former Blue Peter presenter, Valerie. All of the above ‘turns’ are remarkably samey, which is a shame as none of them are remotely funny.

In between acts we see pre-recorded segments of Stuart changing clothes, which just about managed to serve as unintentional highlights.

Drag performances are so much more than simply throwing on a frock and putting on a voice. It an art form that needs to be learned and honed like any other. If this act was in the corner of a gay bar, people would simply turn away and start demanding the karaoke.

LIVE COMEDY at the EDINBURGH FRINGE

Another fringe year, another innuendo fuelled show from oor Craig, Edinburgh’s own comedy gay son.

For those not so familiar, for the last decade or so, Hill has had some success at mincing around the stand-up mike, entertaining that sect of The Blue Rinse Brigade who like things a wee bit naughty. Essentially, Hill is Graham Norton in a kilt.

Actually, maybe I simply haven’t noticed this previously, but this year he seems to have turned a little nasty.  Perhaps it was just a bad night, but in amongst the usual gags and camp stories, there was some really ill-judged audience participation, which left his targets and the punters around them feel more than a little uneasy.

Some people actually walked out, an occurrence I simply hadn’t witnessed at a Craig Hill show before.  I mean, he’s hardly Scott Capurro, is he? It’s all very well trying to expand your repertoire Craig, but not if you’re going to alienate your key demographic.

LIVE COMEDY at the EDINBURGH FRINGE

Amos is a great favourite of mine, and has been since 2001. When he came out on stage a couple of years ago, I practically fell in love with him.  To tell a coming out story on stage, to a massive straight audience, and to keep them onside, was just phenomenal to witness.  He really is the best in the business in controlling a crowd.  For the last two years his shows have been the highlight of my fringe.  All of Me in 2006 and More of Me in 2007 were both outright successes.  Heartfelt, personal and with more laughs per hour than any other show around.

This year he has ditched any sort of theme and instead simply opted to tell jokes, seeking simply to Find the Funny.  And here, Amos has lost something.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very funny – he proves it by getting a posh guy to measure the laughter and applause on a clip board throughout the show.  It’s just for once all the laughs seemed rather aimless.  The show simply didn’t go anywhere.  A shame that, as Stephen K Amos is one of the very best stand-ups working in the UK today.

LIVE COMEDY at the EDINBURGH FRINGE

Reggie has been at the top of his game for some time now.  He’s as bright as a button and as cool as a freezer.  He is on stage who he is in real life.  This year he asks where men are supposed to fit in now we’re well into the 21st century.  He talks about how much stronger us guys need to be, telling jokes about incest and rape along the way.  They are, he explains, ‘just jokes’.  And so they are.

You may have seen Reggie on the likes of The Culture Show, 8 Out Of 10 Cats and QI and has a frequent guest on Have I Got News For You.  He shines on the TV, but live on stage he sparks.

Unusually for a stand up he keeps audience interaction to a minimum.  Those who are generally afraid to sit on the front row will feel very safe here, despite some of his material.