wed 02/04/2025

Comedy Reviews

Edinburgh Fringe: Kieran and the Joes/ Conor O'Toole/ Tom Allen/ Kate Smurthwaite

Veronica Lee Kieran and the Joes: clean-cut comics with a dark side

Kieran and the Joes are a three-man sketch group (Kieran Hodgson, Joe Markham and Joe Parham, working with co-writer Tom Meltzer) who are young, personable and very neatly dressed in shirts and ties - but while they may appear clean-cut their comedy veers nicely towards the dark.

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Edinburgh Fringe: Adam Riches/ Kristin Hersh

theartsdesk

From the moment Adam Riches bursts onto the stage, spewing his business cards around as a manic showbiz agent who wants to sign up everyone and everything - including even the venue's walls and floor - this is a show of hyper energy and absurdist comedy.

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Edinburgh Fringe: Tiffany Stevenson/ Carl Donnelly/ The Two Wrongies

theartsdesk


Tiffany Stevenson ★★★★

The comic is currently appearing on Show Me the Funny on ITV, where her smily disposition is a welcome antidote to some of the sneery critics they have mustered. There’s boyfriend stuff in Cavewoman but Stevenson also delivers a few astute political observations, as well as the occasional unPC gag - such as suggesting Tina Turner's dance moves were inspired by her avoiding Ike’s punches.

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Edinburgh Fringe: The Cave Singers/ The Real MacGuffins/ An Instinct for Kindness

theartsdesk The Cave Singers: authentically hairy three-piece from Seattle

A three-piece hailing from Seattle and its environs, The Cave Singers are an authentically hairy proposition. With his tweed hat and red beard, at this Edge festival gig singer Pete Quirk looked like a cross between the late Robin Cook and a stray leprechaun from Finian’s Rainbow, while Derek Fudesco dispensed his lovely, liquid guitar lines from beneath a blur of flying hair.

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Edinburgh Fringe: DeAnne Smith/ A Slow Air/ Dregs

Veronica Lee

DeAnne Smith, Gilded Balloon ****

 

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Edinburgh Fringe: Jason Cook/ Cul de Sac/ Fear of a Brown Planet

Veronica Lee Jason Cook: the comic has masterly audience skills

Jason Cook has masterly audience skills, and he needed them all the night I saw him. A middle-aged teacher (who really should know better), whose refreshment clearly led her to the delusion that she was the person people had paid to see, kept interrupting. Even the engaging and unfailingly polite Geordie comic's patience was wearing thin, but he constantly bested her and got on with the job of making us laugh.

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Edinburgh Fringe: Glenn Wool/ Jerry Sadowitz/ Ford and Akram

theartsdesk

The Canadian is making a welcome return to the Fringe after a few years away and the break has served him well, as he's been doing a bit of travelling, and it was an incident when he flew to Indonesia that provides the starting point - and beautifully conceived climax - to No Lands Man

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BBC Proms: Tim Minchin, Kit and the Widow, Beardyman, BBC Concert Orchestra

Jasper Rees

It has been, we can safely agree, a truly terrible week. Art, culture, call it what you will, is unequal to the task of diagnosing a nation’s ills, let alone curing them. But on a night such as the inaugural Comedy Prom, it comes equipped with healing balm. This evening was maybe not perfect. There were wrinkles, little bits here and there that didn’t quite work. But the Saturday night that the BBC Proms gave over to the business of laughter could not have been more opportune.

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Edinburgh Fringe: Jackie Leven/ Jen Brister/ Doris Day Can F**k Off

theartsdesk

Physically reduced he may have been, but his talents were as expansive as ever, and more than capable of holding a small room captivated with just voice and guitar.

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Edinburgh Fringe: Dana Alexander/ A Sentimental Journey/ Dog-Eared Collective

Veronica Lee Dana Alexander: the Canadian makes good comedy out of her Jamaican/American/British family

After 12 years in the business, Dana Alexander, an ebullient and instantly likeable presence on stage, is still the only black woman on the Canadian comedy circuit. Not that her ethnicity is Alexander's pre-occupation – it most definitely isn't – but it does play a part in her act.

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