The Definitive Guide to Comedy
⭐⭐⭐½ What happened to the double act? Doesn’t anyone want to be friends? Those are the questions double act Soft Play (Maria Telnikoff and Vidya Divakaran) ask and answer in this debut hour jumping across, around and at their audiences this month in Edinburgh. Some duos they portray are legendary (Remus and …
⭐⭐⭐½ Britt Migs, a “Creator to Watch” at last year’s New York Comedy Festival, is a hit online through her solo front-facing sketches or through her segments with Cracked. Migs also has been through a lot in the past couple of years, personally and professionally. Her Fringe debut aims to …
⭐⭐⭐ Are you not gruntled? Fine people of Edinburgh, are you not gruntled?!? Jazz Emu, aka Archie Henderson, is a graduate of the Cambridge Footlights sketch troupe and a Fringe staple for his character-based musical comedy. His name befits his musical style and his physique. And taking the stage with …
⭐⭐⭐½ The third in a trilogy, this hour actually also serves as her origin story. So even if you hadn’t seen “Marj” or “O,” or even realized that the trilogy has been spelling out her first name, Marjolein Robertson’s newest hour is accessible to new audiences. Well, slightly accessible. She …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Wasn’t so long ago that the UK tabloids showcased young women with “big naturals” on Page 3 of their daily newspapers. That could be eye-opening to a child. For Petts, she also recounts her enjoyment at reading all of the salacious stories in print when she was only 8 …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ What were doing 10 years ago? Glenn Moore didn’t even consider himself a comedian a decade ago, and certainly didn’t have the self-esteem to be the barnburner of a stand-up he is today. But the comedian takes us back time and again to a road trip gone awry with …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ This hour is not a direct attack on “Mango Mussolini.” But it is, perhaps, a direct result of the threat America’s current president represents to the health and safety of the award-winning comedian, and even more especially, to Rosie O’Donnell’s autistic non-binary tween. This hour also “is not Angela’s …
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The first of three consecutive Fringe First award-winning productions from Xhloe Rice and Natasha Rowland is both their most purely clownish hour, and also their most meta. Xhloe and Natasha excel in intricately-choreographed stagecraft. It’s absurdist buffoonery, with balletic grace. And for their most absurd idea yet, they’re mounting …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Ismael Loutfi’s story is not the typical saga of the child of immigrants who becomes an American stand-up comedian and TV writer. Sure, Loutfi has grown into both of those professions. But few can talk about having a father moving to Connecticut from Syria in the late 1970s, having …
⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2 Plenty of Fringe shows begin with trigger warnings, but how many can boast a cute warning? Grace Helbig was inducted as part of the inaugural class into the VidCon Hall of Fame earlier this summer, along with fellow O.G. YouTubers Rhett & Link, Smosh, and Hank Green. Green released …
