Review
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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 a show on a cold Sunday evening – even if today is the first day its felt remotely cold.
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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 hahahahahahaha hihihi hahahahahahahaha hoho hahahhahahaha hehe hahahahahahahahahaha,’ and this, combined with Masli’s considerable background in clowning, meant I was knew I was in for an intriguing evening.
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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 covered with seats and despite it being a Sunday, the vibe is giddy and excited.
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‘Second Summer of Love,’ by Emmy Happisburgh review: ‘anchored by vitality and charisma’
Second Summer of Love is the debut play from actor and teacher Emmy Happisburgh, about a former raver and now parent reminiscing about her time on the 1980s rave scene. Happisburgh arrives onstage in a neon and black bodysuit. She is almost immediately confronted by her aggrieved teenage daughter Molly (Rosa Strudwick, her real-life daughter) who is attempting to revise drug side effects for her exams and finds her mother’s distraction frustrating.
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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 Leicester Square Sketch-Off finalist, Algar comes to the stage in a strikingly ghostly form; a paper-white old lady, with bright blue eyeshadow, pink lips, and an over-sized brown coat and headscarf.
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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 appears on and writes for Lorna Rose Treen’s brilliant Radio 4 show, Time of The Week.
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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 debuting, with a show called ‘See You in Hell.’
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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 the audience can see them).
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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 theatre improv workshop and performing with ‘This Is Your Musical,’ one of the Bristol Improv Theatre’s in-house troupes.
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Chris Grace: Sardines at The Wardrobe Theatre review – ‘beautifully profound and touching’
I was exclusively attracted to seeing Chris Grace’s show ‘Sardines,’ by two important factors – 1) my deep affection for his long-suffering character Jerry on the criminally-underloved NBC sitcom ‘Superstore,’ and 2) a general intrigue of a US comedian coming to Bristol, given that they tend to mostly stay in London (occasionally braving Manchester.) But I’m so, so glad that I did, even if the initial reasons were very superficial.