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Josie Long: Now Is The Time of Monsters review – ‘endearingly intimate and vigorously potent’
Josie Long visits the Old Vic with her acclaimed 2025 Fringe show, ‘Now Is The Time of Monsters.’ It’s lovely to see comedy in the Old Vic, as it’s such a beautiful venue, and since winter has apparently arrived in Bristol at 11am today, it feels appropriately cosy to go to the theatre and watch…
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Julie Masli: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha review – ‘enigmatic charisma’
Julie Masli brings her acclaimed show ‘ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,’ to the Old Vic. The show has had huge success, being voted the Most Innovative Show by the Offies and winning the 2023 Best Show Award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, among considerable other recognition. The show’s blurb is ‘ hahahahahahahahahaha…
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Helen Bauer: Bless Her review – ‘effortless charisma and magnetism’
It’s a great night for comedy on North St on this drizzly September Sunday; Ahir Shah is doing a double work-in-progress show at Bar 57, and just ten minutes away, Helen Bauer brings her tour show ‘Bless Her,’ to the Tobacco Factory. I head to the latter, where the usual large stage area has been…
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Ozzy Algar: Speed Queen at Cellar Pleasance Courtyard review – ‘Algar is dynamite’
A mere 30 hours after my first Fringe show – but physically and mentally feeling as if I’d aged several years – I returned to the room where I’d seen Just The Two Of Us for my penultimate one, Ozzy Algar’s Fringe debut Speed Queen. A student of renowned clown teacher Philipe Gaulier and 2024…
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Kathy Maniura: Cycling Man at Attic Pleasance Courtyard – ‘incredibly vivid and deeply silly’
Like a lot of my Fringe calendar, Kathy Maniura’s character comedy show, ‘Cycling Man,’ came recommended to me from the Instagram stories of Lorna Rose Treen, who is doing a sterling job of using her large following to platform some of the more bonkers comedy on offer. Like almost all of the shows I saw,…
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Alice Cockayne: Licensed. Professional. Qualified. Trained at Pleasance Courtyard – ‘a surreal dream’
After a review-less break in the balmy waters of Rajiv Karia’s show – in which I truly did not know what to do with my hands without a pen and a notebook – we returned to the same room at the Pleasance Courtyard for Alice Cockayne’s show. Cockayne is a working-class, Northern character comedian, who…
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Alice-India: See You In Hell at Underbelly Bristo Square review – ‘casual, fun and effortless’
I last saw Alice-India perform at the (sadly) now-deceased Cowgirl Comedy in Bristol several years ago. She headlined a weird but fun show (also featuring an embryonic Sam Williams), and had a compellingly relaxed and confessional presence, so I was intrigued to see how her material and persona had developed. Fast-forward to 2025 and she’s…
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Laura Davis: Despair Is Beneath Us at Monkey Barrel review – ‘whimsical and brilliant’
I knew absolutely nothing about Laura Davis before walking into their show, Despair Is Beneath Us, other than they’re being Australian. They start from the audience, chatting their way onto the stage, and have the immediate ease that twenty years in comedy give a performer, instantly coming across assured and charming (even before most of…
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Just The Two Of Us at Cellar Pleasance Courtyard – ‘radiant chemistry and charisma’
Feeling somewhat tired from being woken up repeatedly by an extremely chatty field of sheep in the Lake District, I arrived at Edinburgh Waverly relieved to have finally made it. Then after lunch, picking up my press pass, dropping off my stuff and getting ready to go out again, I discovered I was in fact…
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‘This Is Your Musical’ ft. Chris Grace at The Bristol Improv Theatre review – ‘relentlessly good fun’
I would like to state for the record that I did not intend to pursue Chris Grace around Bristol. I was researching my review for his solo show ‘Sardines,’ absent-mindedly wondering why he happened to be in Bristol, and discovered he was here for a few days – performing ‘Sardines,’ but also teaching a musical…
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