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Paul Mitchell August 24th, 2018 by

Paul Mitchell gives his readers the unusual feeling that he is trying very hard to explain what’s going on onstage, yet leaves you with very little idea what went on onstage. There’s a lot of florid prose that just bursts into nothingness like sprays of cherry blossom if you get too close to it. Sometimes […]


Lynne Geoff August 13th, 2018 by

Lynne is the latest of the Geoff family, who are sort of like that family in The Hills Have Eyes, except these fun-loving maniacs are constantly craving some meaty human comedy to butcher. Lynne makes a decent fist of it, though, with Phil Ellis; at least ‘Phil Ellis is a stupidly funny man’ is a […]


Rowena McIntosh August 23rd, 2017 by

Reading a Rowena McIntosh review is a bit like seeing a social worker or a psychologist who you’re relying on in court. Probably. What I mean is, that she’s all smiles and happy noises but there’s a sense she’s de-escalating and boxing her reviewees up so she can get on with her life. To demonstrate: […]


Martin Gray August 9th, 2017 by

When you work at the Scotsman, I guess, you don’t feel you need to impress anyone. I mean sure, the paper is going down the tubes faster than a KY-jellied eel poo at a waterpark but for the moment it’s still the grand dame of Scottish journalism. Or croque monsieur, since Scotsman is the most […]


Polly Glynn August 17th, 2016 by

“There are a few lyrical clangers,” says Polly Glynn of Gareth Richards… and it’s a charge that might be made of her reviews too. There’s quite a lot that jars. She tells us that Michael Brunstrӧm’s The Hay Wain Reloaded is saved by “its clever and coherent structure”, but then immediately afterwards concludes that it’s […]


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 […]


Cara McNamara August 15th, 2015 by

This year The Skinny has taken to packing shows together for review, which may be new editor Ben Venables’ way of getting more work out of his staff. For my money this approach works best when the shows under discussion have some points in common. The Skinny does indeed bind the shows together as themes, […]


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 […]


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 […]


Zander Bruce August 14th, 2014 by

“I first encountered this verdant dominatrix muppet at Meet the Media this year and within moments we were swapping stories of threesomes, hotel sex and Grindr.” So starts a typical Zander Bruce review. Bruce’s reviews are not really reviews as much as they are opportunities for Zander Bruce to talk about Zander Bruce, in the […]


Ben Venables August 7th, 2014 by

There comes a point in every Ben Venables review that you realise he’s gone off on one and left you scratching your head. His musings reach their most quixotic when he’s trying to describe what people look like: “His slight frame and birdie innocence recall the infant heron gulls that have divebombed Edinburgh gardens these […]


Dan Lentell August 3rd, 2014 by

Dan Lentell has several obstacles to overcome if he wants to be taken seriously as a reviewer. First he must differentiate clearly between his objective description of the event he’s watching and the nebulous PR-spracht of the performer’s flyer. Or maybe it’s just what tumbled, unsorted, from Lentell’s head. In any case, paragraphs like this […]


Kayleigh Blair August 3rd, 2014 by

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 […]


Marissa Burgess July 28th, 2014 by

Marissa Burgess rarely allows herself more than 200 words, and even then never gets very close to the thing she’s examining. This can lead to her doing that reviewer’s thing of just reeling off the set-list, as she does with Paul F Taylor: “…Greedy seagulls, cats who are like baked products and impressions of caterpillars […]


Okay, so that’s not his real surname. It’s not even an official nom de plume.We don’t know what his real surname is. He won’t tell us. Or maybe it’s Geoff the One4Review editor who won’t tell us. Maybe Geoff doesn’t want him getting ideas beyond his station. Geoff (Evans) himself is just ‘Geoff’ most of […]


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 […]


Kate Copstick July 17th, 2014 by

What would The Scotsman’s Fringe coverage be without Kate Copstick’s Fringe Diary? Nowhere much. The Scotsman that The Scotsman is written for is something between a grumpy Presbyterian minister and a right-on civil servant; Copstick’s bawdy reportage is the only thing that keeps the national ink from being a killjoy at its own party. If […]


Steve Bennett July 17th, 2014 by

What can be said of Steve Bennett that has not been moaned, griped or whinged in the back of a car? Some say he’s too harsh with the ladies. Some say he gives the ladies an easy ride. Some say he judges them on their looks. Some say he’s only doing it to get with […]


Sophie Nicoll July 17th, 2014 by

Sophie Nicoll is as solid a reviewer as you are likely to find in Three Weeks. In a short span of words she tells you how shows started, how they proceeded and how they ended – in that order. Then she’ll judge it, and her judging is quite humane. If there’s one small fault with […]


“It certainly does pay tribute to Richard Herring’s comic abilities that the audience was able to leave the theatre feeling strangely uplifted, especially when considering the show’s subject matter.” Did that sentence hurt your eyes? Welcome to the reviewing world of Robert McGowan Stuart, a chap who never writes more than 120 words, 100 of […]


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