wed 21/05/2025

Comedy Reviews

Ed Byrne, Berry Theatre, Hedge End review - musing on middle-age angst

Veronica Lee

Ed Byrne's new show takes a philosophical bent as he muses on middle age and fatherhood. But don't worry, he's not getting soft at the age of 47 – he's as sarcastic, caustic and self-deprecating as ever in If I'm Honest...

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Count Arthur Strong, Leeds City Varieties review - stargazing and mangled syntax

Veronica Lee

Count Arthur Strong, the character created by Steve Delaney, started life in the late 1990s and  became a cult figure at the Edinburgh Fringe over several years. Radio shows and three series of a television sitcom (written with Graham Linehan) followed and now he’s taking the character back on the road with Is There Anybody Out There?

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Brydon, Mack and Mitchell, Portsmouth Guildhall review - family-friendly fun

Veronica Lee

Rob Brydon, Lee Mack and David Mitchell are the host and team captains respectively of Would I Lie to You?, the long-running BBC One panel game. Now they are touring together in Town to Town, which is family-friendly fun (with occasional naughtiness from the delightfully sweary Mack).

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Romesh Ranganathan, Brighton Dome review - transgressive, edgy and very likeable

Thomas H Green

One question springs immediately to mind on hearing that Romesh Ranganathan’s new stand-up show, The Cynic’s Mixtape, is touring: how does he find the time? Ranganathan has overtaken Jack Whitehall as Britain’s most media ubiquitous comic, with a deluge of TV shows and appearances, a column in the Guardian newspaper and even a recent autobiography.

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Sofie Hagen, Soho Theatre review - sex weekend in Swansea, anyone?

Veronica Lee

Memory is a funny thing: it can get you through exams; it can comfort you or distress you; it can last a lifetime or go in an instant. In Sofie Hagen's case, her idiosyncratic one has provided material for her new show Bumswing, which started life at the Edinburgh Fringe and is now at Soho Theatre.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Jordan Brookes/ Catherine Cohen

Veronica Lee

Jordan Brookes Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★

Jordan Brookes doesn’t tell gags. Well, he does but not in a traditional stand-up way. Rather, his jokes are subtly inserted into I’ve Got Nothing’s seemingly disjointed narrative.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Alun Cochrane/ Sarah Keyworth/ Glenn Moore/ Sophie Duker

Veronica Lee

Alun Cochrane Pleasance Courtyard 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2019 review: Arabella Weir - Does My Mum Loom Big In This?

David Kettle

If nothing else, Arabella Weir quips, she can thank her mother for providing the material for her first Fringe show.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Catherine Bohart / Matt Parker / Nigel Ng / Zoë Coombs Marr

Veronica Lee

Catherine Bohart Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★

Catherine Bohart has a most unusual starting point for her new show, Lemon. Last year at the Fringe, a woman was so appalled by the Irishwoman mentioning her sexuality – she’s bisexual – in her show Immaculate that she pronounced herself “disgusted” by its sexual content.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Phil Wang/ London Hughes/ Jack Gleadow/ Mr. Thing

Veronica Lee

Phil Wang Pleasance Courtyard 

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