Sunday 31 August 2008

Magic Glue Photos

Below are some photographs from The Magic Glue's rehearsals and the show at The Stand in July. All of them were taken by Heidi Kuisma. Go hire her for all your photographic needs.























Tuesday 26 August 2008

End of the Festival

With the Edinburgh Festival having come to a close I thought I'd briefly riound up the shows I've been to see in the last couple of weeks.

Angry Puppy was a solid all-female sketch show. The cast and sketches were all of a high quality.

Limmy's Show didn't have the atmosphere of his Oran Mor shows in March, but it was still top drawer stuff. Any show featuring me trying to climb a fence must be funny.

Scott Cappuro
had a lot of 5 star reviews and according to each one a lot of walk outs. On the night I saw him no one walked out, but that's not to say he toned it down that night. The vast number of comedians who think that they're edgy really ought to go see Cappuro to see how it's really done. This was boundary-pushing stand-up at its best. He even managed to squeeze in some mild masturbation during the hour.

Easily the worst show I saw at the festival was Paul Foot's. Quite how this guy has a career is a mystery to me. He stretched about 6 minutes of material into an hour. When one of your audience says "You're actually humping me now," your show's taking a wrong turning somewhere.

The sketch show Two Episodes of MASH had some mixed reviews over the three weeks. I enjoyed it for the most part. There were some good, quirky ideas, like the super-hero who had given it all up to teach road safety (Road Safety - It's Not Just For Arseholes) and the human cannonball who had overshot, meaning he couldn't get his timesheets signed. There was a good running gag about their sponsorship deal with a scaffolding firm. The whole thing though was only 45 minutes long.

Wisecrackin' Mindsqueezin' Behemoth was another sketch show written and performed by JL Roberts and Nadia Kamil. They had done a show called Staggered Spaces that I saw a couple of years ago. They are both likable and engaging performers. The show was a bit shambolic but all the more fun for it.

Global Warming is Gay featured Glue's very own Dazza. Despite a few really awful lines it wasn't a bad show. However for my mind you may as well have written a show replacing global warming with collecting football programmes, such as I didn't really buy that these folk were spending £30,000 to combat global warming.

Edinburgh was rounded off this year for me with Doug Stanhope last night. Shambling through the crowd in the small bar he looked as ridiculous as I've ever seen him. A skip cap perched on his mulleted head, his jacket looked like something he'd stolen off a drunken sailor and his baggy shorts looked like he'd slept in them the last couple of nights. Oh aye that's right, he had.

He began by riffing with the crowd, by the time he'd had his third beer he was really on form. He did have to deal with idiotic attention seeking hecklers, but all in all he delivered a first class show.

Here's an interview with him about Edinburgh from last week's Metro.


So that's it for Edinburgh for me as a punter this year. Saw some decent shows and ate some good pies out of Piemaker. Spent too much money that's for sure.

Monday 11 August 2008

Woody Allen Interviewed

Here's a hilarious interview with Woody Allen from 1971. He's taking the piss all the way. It's played completely deadpan, but the interviewer tittering at several points gives it away. It comes in four parts.

Interviewer: "I rather enjoyed it."
Woody Allen: "Yes, but you're mistaken."


Sunday 10 August 2008

More From Edinburgh

I saw a couple of shows from the Free Fringe/Festival in the middle of last week. Scott Agnew is there with his show Big Boy. He's on a bit of a tour with it, as it's playing in various venues throughout the run. I also went along to see Tartan Special in Meridan at the bottom of Leith Walk.

On Friday I saw
Morgan Murphy at The GRV. Murphy is a well known and respected comic in the US, appearing on the Comedians of Comedy tour as well as late night chat shows. Here though she drew an audience of six. She turned in an excellent performance, but I couldn't help but feel it would have been more enjoyable with a bigger crowd in the room. I guess it says something about Edinburgh, she could be playing clubs in the US to decent crowds and earning cash, but instead she's in Scotland playing to a handful of folk each night. Well worth going to see though.

Later on I went to see Glenn Wool in the Underbelly. As I've said here before Wool is easily one of the best comics working in Britain. His delivery is just first class. His show deals with his divorce and it was interesting to see how much of it had changed since he performed part of it in Glasgow in March.

I should also maybe mention that John Gordillo, who struggled when I saw him on the first preview night, received a five star review from Chortle.

Down below there's some Morgan Murphy.


Thursday 7 August 2008

Pish Talk

As a companion to Talking Pish, I've set up Pish Talk on Tumblr. Here you'll find quick links and videos.

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Limmy's Show

Here's a trailer for Limmy's Show at the Edinburgh Festival. Worth watching just to see me running. And here he is being interviewed by the BBC.

Friday 1 August 2008

Edinburgh Festival 2008

It's Edinburgh Festival time again and I've been through the last couple of days to see some shows. They're still in previews at the moment so not fair really to give them the famous Tom ratings ;o).

The first show I saw was Ivan Brackenbury's Hospital Christmas Roadshow. This was pretty solid character comedy built round an incompetent hospital radio DJ. There was the odd cock-up, but that just made it funnier. The show revolves around the inappropriate songs Brackenbury plays for the afflicted patients in the hospital.

Next up was Pappy's Fun Club. A well regarded sketch troupe they were on at the Pleasance Cabaret Bar. It was gag packed, somewhat chaotic and an enjoyable hour.

Now it's fair to say that over at the Pleasance Dome John Gordillo didn't have his best night. John compered a night I was on at The Stand about two years ago and to my surprise he recognised me. This led to the first instance of a performer personally offering me a refund from the stage. It turned out that I was the only one of the small audience who had actually paid in. When his show hit its mark it was pretty funny, it was just a wee bit off being ready.

Richard Herring's new show The Headmaster's Son is up to his usual standards. Full of self-deprecating humour and plenty of off-colour jokes. There is a fair wee bit of heart in it as well.

The best show I've seen so far though is John Pinette - I Say Nay Nay. Fans of Seinfeld will know who John Pinette is as he played the fat guy who caused the gang to be arrested in the final episode. His first time at the Festival he hammered out an hour of solid polished stand-up. Mainly revolving round food and the various embarrassments his size and appetite has called him he was received warmly by the audience. It was obvious that he was enjoying himself onstage and appreciated the response. He also turned in an excellent Elvis impression.

I'll be back through next week to see more. Enjoy some John Pinette complaining about queues down below.