EVERYTHING MARKED WITH: Broadway Baby


Jane Beeston August 20th, 2018 by

“Words, words, words – Jane has always been obsessed with them, those written, spoken and performed!” So begins Jane Beeston’s BB Biog. And she’s not wrong. She does like her words. She likes them so much that often she cannot decide which of them to invite round to her paragraph and so has all of […]


Frodo Allan August 27th, 2017 by

You know that bit in the Fisher King… (yes I know nobody watches the serious Robin Williams films anymore but you MUST have seen this one)… you know that bit where the lonely office worker lady says to Robin “Are you real?” because he’s being the sort of lovely, dreamy boyfriend everyone wants. On top […]


Laura Pujos August 26th, 2017 by

Nobody could accuse Pujos of being dismissive about what she sees. Bloody hell no. She attends comedy shows as if she’s been asked to take notes for a Hague War Crimes tribunal; presenting each point before cross-examining it and (usually) finding it guilty of something. This jurisprudence is not in the service of seeing both […]


Eva Hibbs August 8th, 2017 by

We were beginning to think that the art of the reviewer brainfart was passed, so thank all that’s holy for Eva Hibbs. Her small stack of reviews so far provide some of the most perplexing and intractable sentences yet committed to the canon. Hibbs has reviewed some shows with very out-there conceits, which in itself […]


Simon Fearn August 16th, 2016 by

Reading a Simon Fearn review puts one in mind of one of those QVC infomercials where they have 20 minutes to fill and only a set of Tupperware beakers to talk about. Fearn covers every angle, in the most plodding way, almost as if he’s got one eye on the word count to see if […]


Louise Jones August 27th, 2015 by

Louise Jones could do with reading over her work and tightening things up a bit. She uses the word ‘conceit’ and the phrase ‘padded out’ a bit and there are quite a few typos to trip the reader up. But such things are only worthy of mention because they impede what could be very good […]


Sarah Gough August 24th, 2015 by

I’m sure that, if I could get over the pony club tone to Sarah Gough’s reviews, I’d find her to be a perfectly adequate reviewer. So I’m going to say that she’s a perfectly adequate reviewer. I’m sure the non-ironic and shameless use of the phrase “cheeky chappy” to describe Rhys Nicholson is annoying only […]


Catriona Scott August 23rd, 2015 by

There’s something very amusing about Catriona Scott’s reviews. She writes in the style of a Victorian botanist describing something nobody has ever seen before. She describes the physicality of the scene, the species of jokes and the sequence of events as if she’s anxious that the police might want to know later. She doesn’t find […]


Kate Wilkinson August 22nd, 2015 by

Kate Wilkinson gets the reviewing lark right, on the whole, with a nice balance between exposition and commentary. Her style is engaging, and she gives just enough away for the reader to want to know more. Of That Pair she tells us “The Truth About Girls is surely destined to become a feminist anthem; its chorus […]


Joseph McAulay August 19th, 2015 by

Joseph McAulay concerns himself with theatre in the main, and makes only occasional sorties into comedy. While a thesp overview of comedy is sometimes helpful and revealing, McAulay gives the overall impression of someone who wishes the comedy he’s watching could be a bit more – well, theatre-y. It’s clear that he sees the driving […]


Marni Appleton August 14th, 2015 by

Marni Appleton isn’t a terrible reviewer – let’s be clear about that. She lays out very clearly what the viewer can expect in broad strokes, and her prose is clear and unjumbled. That may sound like faint praise, but we’re talking about Broadway Baby here, where every writer with basic literacy skills is like a […]


Will Pope August 12th, 2015 by

For any comedian older than about 35, bringing your comedy to the Fringe has a special pitfall: the sizable chance that, if you speak on any subject other than snogging, worrying about your genitals and handing in a dissertation, the 17-year-old student reviewer will brand your material “not always relatable”. So it’s nice that Will […]


Dawn Kofie August 9th, 2015 by

There is the occasional nice bit of phrasing in Dawn Kofie’s reviews. They occur when she is just saying what she sees. Stuff like “there’s a weirdly lyrical description of [Rob Delaney] taking a Peeping Tom role when his friend’s neighbour has an S&M party.” This, at least, makes me want to see Delaney’s show. […]


Larry Bartleet August 8th, 2015 by

  There’s a certain sort of FringePig reader who only reads the reviewer-reviews that are two pigs and below. Some of them even write in to ask why we bother praising some reviewers, suggesting that’s not what we’re here for. So it’s with apologies to these readers (probably, let’s face it, 90 per cent of […]


Dave House August 26th, 2014 by

Sometimes you just want to tell Dave House not to get so overexcited. Sophie Willian: Novice Detective is “about as good as you can reasonably expect”. And Jenan Younis will be glad to learn that “the short length of her show means it remains quite fun throughout and never drags”. This may, however, just be […]


Megan Dalton August 24th, 2014 by

Megan Dalton makes sense most of the time, but occasionally reveals her youthful inexperience by going off half-cocked at nothing very much. For example, her discussion of Baba Brinkman’s The Canterbury Tales Remixed has some lovely observations and deft turn of phrase, such as “the use of mediocre cartoons limits rather than expands the world […]


Vyvyan Almond August 17th, 2014 by

Vyvyan Almond’s sentences are quite over-constructed. They sometimes take so long to reach their point that reading his reviews puts you in mind of a Dickensian preamble. And Dickens, as we know, was paid by the word. That’s not to say that Almond writes with the wit or pathos of Dickens, of course. In fact […]


Charlotte Ivers August 13th, 2014 by

There was a point in Charlotte Ivers’ review of Mark Nelson where I wanted to invent the game Reviewer Bingo, in which the cards would have stock reviewing phrases instead of numbers. “His delivery is confident and relaxed…” (Yes!) “Controversial enough to keep things interesting, but never oversteps the mark….” (Yes!) “His social observations are […]


Hamish Clayton August 10th, 2014 by

There’s something about Hamish Clayton that’s a little bit creepy. He puts you in mind of Prince Joffrey, or Caligula as played by Malcolm McDowell, so quickly do his apparent affections and sympathies turn to menace. “It must be remembered that this is a free show and should be judged accordingly. It is certainly better […]


Katherine Price August 8th, 2014 by

Due to an editorial error by Broadway Baby, Katherine Price’s reviewer-review was written up with incorrect information. One or more of the reviews attributed to her by the BB section editor had in fact been written by Kathleen Price. At the reviewer’s request we have therefore removed the review, at least until we can take […]


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