The Definitive Guide to Comedy
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Kyle Ayers is working on being present, which is something we all should do but definitely trickier for him. Why is not hard to say. It’s Trigeminal Neuralgia, a rare nerve disorder that’s also sometimes referred to as Suicide Disease, because his condition means he’s constantly feeling electrocutions in …
⭐⭐⭐½ Born in Ottawa but based in New York City, Graham Kay is clearly still very much a Canadian at heart. That’d likely be true even if it weren’t for his autistic brother, Pete, who manages to bring out the warmer side of Graham, whether he wants it or not. …
⭐⭐⭐ Netflix made chess thrilling and seductive during the pandemic with The Queen’s Gambit. Kevin James Doyle’s show can’t hope to compete with that. Nor can his game. What he could do, though, is establish a career teaching chess lessons to kids, and somehow parlay that into lucrative opportunities. And …
⭐⭐⭐½ Alice Snedden’s new hour, her first Fringe show since before the pandemic, stands in stark contrast to the hours that precede her in the Pleasance Upstairs space. “A lot of comedians are tackling childhood trauma, but I’m willing to take on cummerbunds.” So expect a much more lighthearted hour …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ NYC-based stand-up Ashley Gavin warns us early on that she knows she looks ridiculous when she cries as well as just how she dresses like a teenage boy onstage. But her show already forewarned us that not only does Gavin have a therapist, but that she probably has a …
⭐⭐⭐½ Actress Anna Akana has more than 2.8 million YouTube subscribers (and an additional 1.5 million combined followers on TikTok and Instagram), and her first big wave of fans found her in 2013 when she posted a viral video titled, “please don’t kill yourself.” That’s when Akana first told the …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ “If it’s not content, then why did it happen?” That’s a pithy way for someone who has grown up in the social media age to describe their terrible case of TMI. But McCafferty’s own show description for the Fringe calls her hour a dark comedy “about death, dating and …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ There’s something extra ominous about being led through a bar into a dark, damp cave as the clock approaches midnight, receiving a wooden percussive instrument, and having your psychic energies measured by a healer who also happens to be a clown. That this healer clown, this Medicine Woman, is …
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ Lots of Fringe shows this month employ songs of the summer from Chappell Roan and Charli XCX to hype up the crowds and themselves. Ian Lockwood’s show is one of the rare few to keep the hyper-pop popping. Lockwood jokes “I wasn’t gay when I came to the Fringe,” …
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Who wouldn’t want to see “the first ever comedy show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe performed entirely by a horse.” Then you encounter Emily-Anne “Elf” Lyons, most certainly a clown human standing before you, and wonder, just whom does this filly think she’s fooling? And yet, Lyons ain’t lying. …
