EVERYTHING MARKED WITH: The Skinny


Roxane Hudon July 17th, 2014 by

Roxane Hudon isn’t a terrible reviewer, but she does possess some annoying tics that become more so as you read through her canon. By the end of it you feel you’ve pulled on a sandpaper vest. For one thing, Hudon seems tied up with her own preconceptions and determined to bore us with what they […]


Jennifer McKiernan writes short, concise reviews that pretty much get to the point and reach conclusions that are, in the main, fair enough. Refreshingly she talks to readers as if they do actually want to know her opinion. “Funny enough but not hilarious”, “a good solid hour” and “well worth seeing” are straightforward statements that […]


Fred Fletch July 17th, 2014 by

I doubt that anyone else out there has read as much Fred Fletch as I have, for the simple reason that Fred Fletch is the most irritating reviewer that has ever lived, or will ever live, in this universe or any other. I doubt anyone else has got past a single paragraph. “He makes the […]


Bernard O’Leary July 17th, 2014 by

Bernard O’Leary is the main man at the Skinny, and it’s interesting to see how his approach differs from that of the other review grandees. For example, while Chortlemeister Steve Bennett was furious with Ellis and Rose’s Jimmy Savile: The Punch and Judy Show – pretty much accusing the hapless duo of wasting his precious […]


Callum Madge July 15th, 2014 by

Although I can only find one comedy review by Callum Madge in 2013, he does seem to write a lot of stuff elsewhere, some of it for a website called TV Bomb which “reports back from stage and screen with scathing clarity to help students decide how best to spend their loans.” On books, for […]


Chris Tapley July 15th, 2014 by

Chris Tapley wrote five comedy reviews for The Skinny in 2013, all of them well-constructed, well-argued and grammatically tight. You have to wonder if The Skinny can’t squeeze a bit more comedy juice out of its more talented reviewers. Tapley isn’t one of those jack of all trades who is constantly being distracted by theatre […]


Simon Pattullo July 13th, 2014 by

Simon Pattullo is perhaps the most judgmental of the Skinny’s comedy reviewers. A sense of judgment is essential to a reviewer, of course, but Patullo consistently dismisses anything that doesn’t provide him with ‘belly laughs’, regardless of any other charms. Last year he made me scratch my head by saying of Laura Levites: “If anything, […]


Yasmin Ali July 13th, 2014 by

Yasmin Ali only reviewed four shows at the 2013 Fringe, which made me wonder whether she’s that committed. Her writing skills, while not terrible, are not on a par with most of her peers at The Skinny, so perhaps she’s merely dipping a toe. If she wants to improve, Ali would do well to avoid […]


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