Edinburgh
graeme.thomson
The great folk guitarist Bert Jansch died early this morning, aged 67. Whether as a prime mover in London's 1960s folk scene, or as part of pioneering folk-jazzers Pentangle, or as a songwriter and solo artist, his influence on everyone from Paul Simon, Donovan, Led Zeppelin and Neil Young to, later, Johnny Marr, Graham Coxon and Beth Orton is simply immeasurable. Young compared Jansch's impact on the possibilities of the acoustic guitar as comparable to that of Jimi Hendrix's on the electric. Right up until his illness (he died after a struggle with lung cancer) Jansch remained one of music' Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The people behind ITV's Show Me the Funny – a sort of X Factor for comics – have, as part of the prize for those who reached last month's final, launched a short UK tour for its winner, Patrick Monahan, and the two runners-up, Tiffany Stevenson and Dan Mitchell. It may be that this show, which I saw at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London, suffered from being filmed for the DVD (to be released in November) but by golly was it long, boring and, for the most part, laughter-free.First up was Mitchell, a young Welshman who failed to raise much more than an occasional smile with his quotidian Read more ...
graeme.thomson
“Are there any freshers in the audience?" asked Emma-Lee Moss halfway through last night’s set. Two voices raised a muted cheer. Whatever else your average 18-year-old might have been doing, cut loose from the apron strings for the first time in the capital city on a Friday night, they were unlikely to be listening to music this polite and well behaved. Or so you’d hope.She may be less widely heralded than Laura Marling, but both women have recently been doing their utmost to transcend the creative straitjacket of middle-class nu-folk girls-with-guitars. This, oddly, has left Moss's music Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The winners of the 2011 Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards have been announced. The main award, worth £10,000, went to Adam Riches for his anarchic and intensely physical show Bring Me the Head of Adam Riches; the best newcomer award, worth £5,000, went to Humphrey Ker for Dymack Watson: Nazi Smasher!, a tall tale woven from his grandfather's real-life wartime exploits as an intelligence officer sent behind enemy lines.
The special panel award, also worth £5,000, went to The Wrestling, a one-off event during which 20 comics engaged in wrestling bouts with professional wrestlers.
Adam Riches: Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It's typically intelligent and insightful stuff from the Irishman, who describes himself simply as a clown - but he's a clown with the requisite political knowledge and understanding of the human condition to make some pretty astute observations about how we are today. And despite his world view being basically lefty and libertarian at the same time, he's also self-aware enough to acknowledge his comfortable middle-class existence. When demonstrators were threatening to force their way into the Ritz Hotel in London in a recent protest, Maxwell's feelings were conflicted between thinking they Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Last year, Josie Long, famous for her whimsical comedy and fey delivery, decided to get serious. Disheartened by the election result, she started to do political comedy, but sadly her level of analysis was along the lines of: “Anyone who voted Tory in May's election is a fucking cunt.” One year on in The Future is Another Place, the level hasn't been raised.It speaks volumes that someone who broadly shares my politics can be so irritating, but suggesting that royalists dying is worth a whoop is just plain mean. Her suggestion that if, were the 95 per cent tax rate to be brought back, the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Chris Ramsey, Pleasance Courtyard ****It's easy to see why the Edinburgh Comedy Awards panel shortlisted South Shields comic Chris Ramsey. He's personable, very funny, has a well-constructed show - and is destined for a big television career any day soon. He used to allow the incorrect description of him as Geordie pass, he says, because he couldn't be bothered to explain the difference between Geordies, Makems and his own tribe, Sand Siders, until the television series Geordie Shore came along – and there was no way this working-class lad made good was going to be associated with that Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Sam Simmons, Gilded Balloon **** Sam Simmons clocks a young girl in the front row and stops the show. “How old are you?” the Aussie comic asks. “Ten,” comes the reply, and he suggests to her mother that this may not be the show for them, so they leave. And just in good time, as what follows is a load of cock and balls as Simmons is dressed in vest and pants which, after he is drenched during a gag, become increasingly, er, figure-hugging.Sam Simmons clocks a young girl in the front row and stops the show. “How old are you?” the Aussie comic asks. “Ten,” comes the reply, and he suggests Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Warning to hunky French jazz pianists: beware a slim, raven-haired Englishwoman who looks like Anne Hathaway but goes by the name of Emma and will up and leave you the second her long-standing chum, Dex, crosses la Manche to extend rather more than a main by way of welcome. Sound unfair? Sure, but love - indeed life, as it is honestly and genuinely lived - hasn't a prayer up against the breathtakingly vacuous conceit that drives One Day, a film that makes zero sense except where these things matter most: the box office. I recognise that not all will share my scepticism, if the reaction Read more ...
theartsdesk
If the cards had fallen differently Luke Haines might have been as big as Blur. As frontman of The Auteurs he was briefly tipped for Britpop greatness, so it is no surprise that he likes the idea of alternative histories. This special show, The North Sea Scrolls, was all about them, as Haines, former Microdisney linchpin Cathal Coughlan, writer Andrew Mueller and cellist Audrey Riley mixed spoken word with punchy lo-fi melodies.According to this bizarro version of the past, narrated by Mueller while Coughlan and Haines shared vocals, record producer Joe Meek was once minister of culture, Read more ...
Veronica Lee
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.In Teampowered the audience are the attendees at a teamworking seminar. You know where this is going to end up, as the trio will of course fall out and the team is destroyed by ego and stupidity, but how they get there has some neat touches, such as getting the audience to practise proposing to the Read more ...
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.The character comic does a quick costume change to become Pedro, a Spanish Swingball champion, and what follows is a version of the game the manufacturers never dreamed of, a waterfight and all sorts of mayhem. There’s a lot of audience participation, but anybody pulled up on stage is enjoying themselves thoroughly; at times there's such Read more ...