The Definitive Guide to Comedy
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The manic pixie dream girl is out. In? The haram pixie devil lady. Saaniya Abbas is 36 but even without adding the furry cat ears to her hairdo, she looks young and tiny enough for a 14-year-old boy to ask her out. In reality, Abbas says she only started …
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ Tobias Finlay-Frasier is ready for his close up. Even if the mere sight of Tobias entering the room for his audition is enough to make any casting director sigh audibly and loudly. But something about this audition feels different from the start. It’s not just that Tobias came prepared …
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ Can you believe there’s an entire generation of comedy fans who never got to see Mitch Hedberg perform live? It has been 20 years since that stand-up legend left us far too soon. And yet Australian comedian Dan Rath fully fills that Mitch itch, somehow writing some of the …
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ Lou Wall is one of my favorite powerpoint-based comedians working today, for the way she casually and chaotically edits and produces musical numbers to the beat of her frantic slide presentations. For this hour, she revisits a viral bit from her previous show and claims to want to tell …
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ Laura Benanti is a long way from Broadway. But her audience can find her just fine at her first Edinburgh Fringe, where audiences might be more familiar with her many TV appearances (perhaps even more so impersonating Melania Trump on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) than with her …
Ismael Loutfi is a comedian and TV writer currently working on the animated series Mating Season from the makers of Big Mouth. His previous credits include writing for After Midnight, Ramy Youssef’s #1 Happy Family USA, and Netflix’s Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj. As a stand-up, he has a half-hour on …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Some Fringe venues just feel built for late-night madcap humor. Pleasance Bunker Two is one of them, and while Alice Cockayne might specialize more in wigs than in caps, she proves why she earned her portion of this year’s Keep It Fringe fund (designed to financially support performers to …
⭐⭐⭐½ The acts I tend to see playing the Cabaret Bar in Pleasance Courtyard each Fringe tend to be some of the most polished club comedians. True professionals at the top of their game. And Hal Cruttenden is no exception. A Best Newcomer nominee way back at the 2002 Fringe, …
⭐⭐⭐½ It feels like an insult slotting a sprightly character comedian in a spare classroom named Pip in the daylight hours of Fringe. Almost as if the Fringe itself read the title of Susan Harrison’s delightful showcase and thought, well, let’s really make her ask the question this month. She …
⭐⭐⭐½ In her hot perimenopause summer phase, Tiff Stevenson understands she cannot control the weather or a piece of her own hair that wants to go its own way, but at least she’s still got a firm grasp on wordplay. So she blesses us with the imagery of rebranding manicuring …
