thu 03/04/2025

Comedy Reviews

Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Ciaran Dowd/ Tom Parry/ Suzi Ruffell, Pleasance Courtyard

Veronica Lee

 

Ciaran Dowd ***

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Robin Ince, Soho Theatre review - fun among the chaos

Veronica Lee

How to describe a show that by Robin Ince’s own admission doesn’t have a narrative strand, and for which he has written several pages of notes that he gets through only a small section of? Well here goes: he calls the show a mash-up of the two cultures of art and science in a celebration of the human mind, and Chaos of Delight is very well named.

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Arthur Smith, Soho Theatre review - charming tribute to his father

Veronica Lee

There has been a trend in stand-up comedy in recent years for intensely personal shows, confessional even, but it’s the comic’s life that is usually the one being examined for comedic effect.

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Frank Skinner, Leicester Square Theatre - mixing some acid with the charm

Veronica Lee

Frank Skinner walks onstage without introduction and a man in the audience gives him a friendly heckle by way of greeting. Skinner is straight on it, engaging him in a brief conversation; his responses are amiable enough but have a few barbs too.

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Emily Atack, Clapham Grand review - I'm a Celebrity... star's first solo show

Veronica Lee

Most people know Emily Atack from The Inbetweeners, where she played Charlotte, the object of Will's desire. More recently, she found new fans as the runner-up on 2018's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! Now she is performing in her first solo comedy show, Talk Thirty to Me.

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Al Murray as the Pub Landlord, Embassy Theatre Skegness review - comic pulls his punches

Veronica Lee

Al Murray's Pub Landlord character has been around since the mid-1990s. As such, it's a wonder that Murray has managed to reinvent the embittered, xenophobic loudmouth so many times, but he has – and the EU referendum in 2016 should have, you may have thought, given the character new life or killed him off altogether.

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Ruby Wax, Brighton Festival 2019 review - how to be human

Katie Colombus

Once the self proclaimed poster girl for mental illness, Ruby Wax has evolved her stand up act, because, as she puts it, “everyone has mental illness now. It spread like wildfire.”

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Andy Hamilton, Brighton Festival 2019 review - gently amusing night of reminiscence

Thomas H Green

Taking place at the Theatre Royal, Andy Hamilton’s show is entitled An Evening with… rather than a straight stand-up and mainly consists of the comedy writer/performer and gameshow regular answering audience questions. During the first half this is done via raising a hand and shouting out questions; during the second half by leaving pieces of paper on the stage front during the interval.

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Seann Walsh, Broadway, Letchworth Garden City review - Strictly's bad boy tells his story

Veronica Lee

Let's start with that kiss – the one that propelled Seann Walsh from “Who?” in last year's Strictly Come Dancing line-up to being the “bad boy” of the series after pictures of his drunken late-night clinch with Katya Jones, his married professional dance partner, appeared in the tabloids.

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Reginald D Hunter, Princes Hall Aldershot review - underpowered but the laughs come through

Veronica Lee

Reginald D Hunter drops the n-bomb near the top of the show. He means no offence, he tells the audience, but it's the vernacular where he comes from in Georgia.

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