PublicationsThe Skinny


The Skinny

Skinny, you may already know, was once called Skinny Fest. But then there was a rupture, and the magazine divided between the people who wanted to write about all the stuff that’s on in Scotland and the people who wanted to hire children to do that once a year, leaving themselves more time to stamp on hamsters while wearing lingerie.*

Skinny employs some canny old dogs who wear long trousers, and some people who still smell mildly of meconium. There’s a similarly sharp divide between its two formats: a website that looks very nice, and a hardcopy monthly that seems to have been put together with all the design élan of the Yellow Pages and then sent to the 1970s for printing.

Skinny throws out more stars than a drunk, jealous ninja who has come home to find his wife with another ninja. Only the North Korean military are more generous with the accolades. Seriously, if you get two stars from The Skinny, that’s like getting your dog’s head in a box from any of the others. A shame, then, that it stretches its finite resources across every aspect of culture from microbreweries to penis jewellery and so only gets around to seeing about 100 comedy shows each year. But this may be why, overall, it is less jaded than the others when it comes to assessing what’s funny.

Skinny could improve by giving its younger journalists better tutelage, or at least a good slap. There is little to be gained, for example, in sending a 12-year-old to watch Gavin Webster, auteur behind All Young People Are Cunts. But this is, at least, a pamphlet which seems to enjoy running a Dickensian coterie of cultural pickpockets and always seems happy to be doing its job.

*This isn’t true.

Edmund Rumania


Reviewers for The Skinny

Yasmin Hackett

Yasmin Hackett is not the most entertaining reviewer. There is something to be said for just turning up and saying ...

George Sully

I’m confused. George Sully is a ‘director’ of Fest, whatever that means, and has also written extensively for the Skinny ...

Eve Livingston

There’s no affectation to Eve Livingston’s reviews; they’re straight as an arrow hewn out at the Rolls Royce machineworks. The ...

Polly Glynn

“There are a few lyrical clangers,” says Polly Glynn of Gareth Richards… and it’s a charge that might be made ...

Stu Black

Stu Black is quite refreshing. Perhaps I feel like that because we’ve all had a week in the FringePig office ...

Craig Angus

Craig Angus is a good example of how The Skinny’s new approach to reviews may not be working. Reviewers now ...

Cara McNamara

This year The Skinny has taken to packing shows together for review, which may be new editor Ben Venables' way ...

John Stansfield

You know how preachers – of any religion – will tell you that God knows you far better than you ...

Chris Rumbles

Chris Rumbles is aptly named: his critiques roll noisily through each show he sees, alerting us to the many bumps ...

Cayley James

Cayley James is in no doubt that she knows what comedy is, and what must be done to make it ...
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