EVERYTHING MARKED WITH: Michaela Plaidface


Article written by Michaela Plaidface

Cayley James August 25th, 2014 by

Cayley James is in no doubt that she knows what comedy is, and what must be done to make it better. When she commands that “The Fringe needs more comedians of colour – the overwhelmingly white programme doesn’t lack quality but it does lack perspective,” it surely did not even occur to her that this […]


Joe Spurgeon August 17th, 2014 by

There’s not much wrong with Joe Spurgeon. So I’ll start with as much wrong as I can find. I disagree with his too-frequent two-star allocations. But then, I would. And I wish he would stop mithering on about shows that don’t have a message or a denouement. It’s almost funny when he complains that Chris […]


I don’t know why this reviewer has awarded himself divinity.  Perhaps he bears a passing resemblance to John Waters’ favourite drag queen. Perhaps – even more than all the other reviewers – this one believes himself appointed to pass God’s infallible judgment upon Fringe entertainment. Whatever the reason, it comes as a disappointment that his […]


David O’Connor August 9th, 2014 by

Sadly for David O’Connor, clicking on his name takes you to the Three Weeks theatre critic Dave Fargnoli. It’s almost as if Three Weeks is losing track of its million pickpocket street children. When you’ve read more than a hundred Three Weeks reviews you start to wonder why they even bother recruiting these youngsters anymore. […]


Barrie Morgan August 9th, 2014 by

Fringe veterans – particularly antipodeans – probably remember Barrie Morgan – he was the hero of Barrie Morgan’s World of Organs, the Australian sitcom and Fringe show. True, we have no evidence that it’s the same Barrie Morgan. In fact we desperately hope it isn’t. Just imagine being in something that creatively bonkers and then […]


Laura Kidd August 8th, 2014 by

Laura Kidd is alright at reviewing, I suppose. She seems to get the measure of Lewis Schaeffer, saying “it takes almost the full 50 minutes of his show to start liking him”. That’s when other reviewers go off him, so it sounds like she saw a good one. And four stars is generous (in a […]


George Robb August 6th, 2014 by

This reviewer has, apparently, “been a fan of the Fringe ever since the age of 14, after stumbling upon it during a long journey from Argyll to England”. One senses that something is missing from this story, such as “as his mother desperately scoured the country for a school where he wouldn’t be bullied”. Perhaps […]


Mathew Tansini July 17th, 2014 by

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 […]


Lily Blacksell July 17th, 2014 by

It’s always difficult reviewing reviewers who are bed-and-breakfasting in comedy when it’s clearly not their specialism. Blacksell spent the 2013 Fringe reviewing music, but then reviewed one comedy show – Alistair McGowan. Why? Because “back in the day, Alistair McGowan’s Big Impression was a firm family favourite in our house”. Right then. So I expect […]


Joe Walsh July 17th, 2014 by

I really cannot say anything about Joe Walsh that would sum him up better than his own sweet words. Take this: “It’s not important that a show hosted by Jo Caulfield is essentially starting at the bottom of a steep hill, as stimulating as her observational comedy and mundane audience interaction are.” So, you’re starting […]


Isobel Steer July 17th, 2014 by

Isobel Steer needs to decide what she likes; what she is passionate about in comedy, and then decide whether the things she is looking at match up to what she likes. At the moment she’s trying too hard to cover all bases and is watching comedy with a detached disengagement that doesn’t quite work. Thus, […]


Elizabeth Jewell considers herself a ‘word nerd’, and while most of her words are all right, her grammar is all over the place. She has a particular penchant for sticking commas in where they’re not wanted, which makes her sentences quite jarring. Sometimes her enthusiasm gets the better of her phrasing, with the result that […]


Cerys Mather July 17th, 2014 by

Cerys Mather has written to Fringepig to explain that comedy reviews attributed to her by Broadway Baby were done so erroneously. We have therefore removed her reviewer-review until she either reviews some comedy, or Broadway Baby pulls its dummy out of its backside, or both. Michaela Plaidface


Corry Shaw July 17th, 2014 by

Corry Shaw is a strange person. I hope I’m not stretching my brief here; I am aware I need to assess the reviewer, not their personality. But Corry Shaw is a perplexingly odd character and this oddity explains the nature of her reviews. At the 2013 Fringe she reviewed one thing, The Barnes Identity, which […]


Ankur Shah July 17th, 2014 by

“Sometimes it seems that words simply cannot do justice to the atmosphere of a performance,” gasps Ankur Shah about Adam Strauss’s The Mushroom Cure. Well have a go, Shah, cos that’s what we’re paying you for! Well, nobody’s paying you, obviously. It’s Three Weeks. But still, have a go. I rather like Shah’s style, at […]


Susan Ford July 13th, 2014 by

“You don’t have to be Irish to enjoy this show, but it certainly may help to jump on board and have a few drinks” says Susan Ford of Best of Irish, being not-at-all reductive. She goes on to explain “The star of tonight’s show is Patrick Monahan, but the line-up changes each night, so I’m […]


Stephen Maughan July 13th, 2014 by

I don’t know how old Stephen Maughan is – I assume, by the fact that he is at Edinburgh University, that  he’s a teenager. But when you read his reviews you can’t help but do so in the accent of a befuddled old man in a blazer such as Viz comic’s Major Misunderstanding. His rather […]


Sarah Richardson is a queen of damning her victims with the faintest praise possible. “Still, for a free show, you could do worse,” she signs off her review of Gareth Morinan. Of Ivor Dembina she says: “If old Jewish jokes are your thing, why go anywhere else?” Of a comedy cabaret troupe she actually likes, […]


Sarah McIntosh July 13th, 2014 by

Sarah McIntosh goes by the Twitter handle ‘domesticharpie’, and her mugshot is of herself and her progeny. I was hoping, therefore, that this mummy-critic would provide a different angle on things to the usual Fringe teennybopper, and on the whole I think she achieves that – not least because she allows her children to add […]


Sam Waddicor July 13th, 2014 by

Sam Waddicor needs to clean up his grammar and his spelling if he’s going to write for Broadway Baby – goodness knows they’re not going to do it for him. Some passages of his reviews just leave you scratching your head. “His most successful moments were probably his impressions of various tapes” he says of […]


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