Whenever I read a review that reads “To be frank, this show couldn’t get much better” I’m always a little suspicious of the author, especially one Fringepig hasn’t encountered before, and especially when I’m reading their first tranche of Fringe reviews. The same sense of unease creeps over me when they call Patrick Monahan a […]
Justin McCarthy doesn’t so much write reviews as retch words from every orifice. Like someone with lexical norovirus the deluge flows from both ends of his points of view, creating a big mess all over the page. “Simply the most bizarre show you will ever have the unfortunate and detrimental privilege to watch” he writes […]
Nanna Gunnars doesn’t want to be misunderstood. Perish the thought. Her reviews have a fussy preciousness to them that’s as clumsy as it is amusing. Her description of Lost Voice Guy was both informative and reasonable, for example, concluding “His banter with the audience is one of the best I have witnessed, not just on […]
Nancy Napper-Canter saw two comedy shows in the 2013 Fringe, and gave them three stars between them. She was similarly ungenerous the year before, where she seemed to respond to a show called We Love Comedy with the riposte “Well I bloody don’t so piss off”. Not that she’s workshy: she takes 550 words to […]
Joanna Alpern writes long, carefully-considered reviews, and always gives the performer – famous or obscure – sufficient due. You might say that she is from the Julian Hall school of comedy reviewing, which is no bad thing. If anything, Alpern goes into too much detail. But it’s forgivable in her case as she tries not […]
Jenni Ajderian proofreads science journals, apparently, which would account for what, in this publication, is an uncharacteristic lack of typographical errors in her reviews. She also has a nice way of recreating the atmosphere of the gig. Of Dan Cook she writes: “The tiny venue makes it possible for the comic to stare down audience […]
Of Milo McCabe’s 2014 offering, Mannamara writes that the comic “is wired to create and unite idiosyncrasies in order to form characters of real comic integrity.” He then goes on about the audience “repartee” (how nice to hear the word ‘repartee’ in this day and age! I thought it had been retired along with ‘’courting’ […]
“I went into the theatre thinking that assisted suicide was a sad but sometimes necessary thing, and I left thinking just that, having learnt very little”. Thus Tom Moyser admonishes Chris Larner, explaining that he had to remove a star from the true monodrama of his terminally ill wife, because he didn’t learn that lethal […]
I’m not sure I believe anything that Rory Mackenzie writes. Not because I think he’s lying, but because I’m not convinced he knows what he’s looking at. His reviews seem to be rooted in the soil of deep ignorance, fertilised by sublimated pain and anxiety. Reading one of his reviews is like trying to get […]
Rob Hayward’s reviewing style would be perfect if he was reviewing Cloud Atlas, or something by Wim Wenders. Pompous, overblown bits of art that strive to move our very souls could hardly complain at being taken this seriously. But when Hayward picks apart something as fluffy and silly as, say, Gráinne Maguire’s One Hour all […]
Sam Bradley commits some of the usual sins of the BB coterie, not least frequent slips of grammar and baggy prose. Of the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society he drones “…for the discerning comedy fans mulling over the current crop of comedians populating this year’s Fringe catalogue [continues ad infinitum]”. At one point Bradley forgets that he’s […]
It’s never easy trying to reviewer a reviewer who has reviewed precisely one comedy show in their entire life. Apart from anything, a person should be allowed to try everything once, should they not? I would not dream of grading Liam Speir on his proclivities with one ladyboy or one hit of methamphetamine, or one […]
“These lads are funny!” That’s what Neil Ballinger could have said about The Noise Next Door. Instead we get “All five of the boys are quick witted and as an audience member, you got the feeling that they could have and most certainly will inject comedy and hilarity into any situation they find themselves in.” […]
“A young lad with a winsome demeanour entered the room and high-fived everyone in the audience. Immediately I liked him.” Ugh, why do people write like this? Were they brought up by mongrels on a bombsite, living in an overturned wheelbarrow without pens or paper? I mean, WHY? It gets worse. “I for one liked […]
Mathew Tansini writes as if he knows a lot about comedy. His convictions are such that, if you knew less about comedy than Tansini, you might well be taken in. But to know less than Tansini you would need to be from a place that doesn’t understand stand-up comedy, like Afghanistan or the Isle of […]
Is there a name more deliciously Joyceian than Maeve Scullion? I can imagine Maeve Scullion being one of the ladies Leopold Bloom eyes up from behind his bushes in Ulysses. You’d expect no nonsense from Maeve Scullion. No nonsense, and maybe some soup. I imagine her going down ‘the comedy’ with a big ladle, just […]
I must say I was a little annoyed by Madeleine Ash complaining about “the endless stream of stand-ups that swarm the Fringe”. Do you hear comedians complaining about the ceaseless pimpled plague of reviewers? Yes you do, and small wonder. However, Ash won me over – for the most part – by being quite capable […]