Search what's on

Advanced

  • Edinburgh reviews

  • Mon Jun 15 2009 Tim Arthur

    Comedy Judge wanted!

    David O'Doherty

    Go to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for free!

    Are you the comedy punter’s voice of London? What plans do you have for the second half of August? Think you could handle more than a hundred hours of comedy in two weeks? Then you may have what it takes to be one of the judges on the panel for the Edinburgh Comedy Awards. David O’Doherty (pictured) was last year’s winner.

    You need to be a regular visitor to live comedy and have bags of energy. You’ll be seeing more than 60 shows in Edinburgh from August 15-30. You’ll be feeding back your opinions of what you’ve seen and contributing to official panel meetings and the process of finding the winners.

    In return, you’ll have to suffer stuffy venues, wet cobbles and plenty of lively arguments. You’ll also have lots of laughs, free accommodation and tickets to shows, travel expenses and, if you’re lucky, invitations to the best parties.

    If you think you fit the bill, all you have to do is write to us saying a bit about yourself and why you’d be the best candidate, and include review of the three most enjoyable comedy gigs you’ve seen since last year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

    You have to be over 18 and resident in London, and should not be connected in any way with the comedy business or harbour ambitions of becoming a critic or comedy writer. If you are shortlisted, you’ll be asked to attend an informal interview. The winner will be selected by awards director Nica Burns and the decision is final. Entries should be no longer than 1,000 words in total. Send to panellist@comedyawards.co.uk or Edinburgh Comedy Awards Panellist, 1 Lumley Court, off 402 Strand, London WC2R 0NB. They should arrive by June 22 2009. The winner will be announced on July 10.
    Comments (0) Add a Comment
  • Wed Aug 20 2008 Dan Geary
    Adam Riches performs much of this curious character piece on crutches or from a wheelchair. Even a broken leg and a visit to A&E early in his run didn't stop the show – that's how much of a real Alpha Male he is.

    Or maybe his collection of damaged, obsolete, lantern-jawed alter-egos won't let him stop. The first two are strongest – big game hunter O'Hara, who “sees with his eyes and kills with his eyes” and talks about himself in the third person, and a dead-eyed late-night quiz show host whose life descends into Kafkaesque horror as callers torment him with ever more abusive answers.

    Things soon become more dependent on the dreaded audience participation, though, with washed-up boyband member Teddy Dish, late of Dayz Of The Year (“I was February 29th – lead zinger on every fourth zong”) and a routine as a sex-crazed Aussie bartender who, hilariously, meets his match in a smirking, gum-chewing real-life American alpha male from the audience. Even Riches's signature character  – Victor Legit, nemesis of DVD pirates and FACT officer, straight out of 70s Brit-grit cop shows – fails to raise the game, and the late introduction of a second actor/audience plant is jarring and unwieldy.

    Riches is a skilled and likeable comedy actor, but all the charisma in the world won't make up for some rather underpowered writing, his show never quite getting its teeth into a subject with vast comedy potential. We hope it, and he, get better for next year.
    Comments (0) Add a Comment
  • Wed Aug 20 2008 Dan Geary
    Henry Rollins's show is overrunning by nearly an hour. It's taken this long for anyone to even attempt to get him to stop talking. Finally, a tech steels a nerve and flashes the light from the back. “That light means 'get the fuck off the stage!'” Rollins declares with a smirk. Then he continues.

    He gets away with it, of course – not because he is the angry, dour, gym-pumped icon punk legend paints him as, but because he is a compelling, funny, charming and nuanced raconteur. Arse-numbing though it may be, no one else has the sheer stamina to hold an audience this long, without even a glass of water. Henry doesn't need a 'show' – his life is material enough. When he does leave, it's to loud ovation, some of it standing.

    Perhaps age has mellowed him; but then maybe there was always more to him. He blushes when airport security guards read his angry-teenager-style diary entries back to him. He is humbled when his idol George Carlin asks him if for advice and to sign his book. He takes the piss out of 80s Black Flag-era Henry – a straight-edge punk nerd in awe of his incongruous hair-metal idols and cooler friend (Fugazi's Ian MacKaye) – and his fearful obsession with saying yes to any job (“I can't say no to work – otherwise I suck, right?”). He is disarmingly flawed and entirely human, a generous performer and a great sport who is utterly self-aware.

    He even does wistful, rambling asides – images of a more innocent time, when rock dinosaurs ruled the earth (“We are MONSTERS!” he declares, upon witnessing an orgy of food, beer, sex and vomit at a Van Halen reunion concert. “It was a living HELL!”). It doesn't dull his edge, though – he still ploughs the same furrows of righteous indignance as Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce and Carlin himself. Whether it's the Bush junta turning America into a nation of fear and loathing (“When the going gets rough, the average get conservative”), post-flood New Orleans, Pakistan, Burma... Rollins puts his money where his mouth is, actually travelling to these monuments to the coming apocalypse, “de-freaking people out” and single-handedly rebuilding relations with the human race through sheer force of will.

    And he has plenty of that. “There's so much more I want to tell you,” he signs off enthusiastically. “Come back tomorrow!” Once we've been to bed, we'll be there.
    Comments (0) Add a Comment
Advertisement