Cate Simpson » Comedy

Janice Phayre

Cate — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:52:00 +0000

With Occasional Showers is like a comedy hit and run: over before you know it has begun, it leaves you stunned by an onslaught of gags about relationships, sex and being an asshole. Its finale is so surreal and utterly surprising that not even the previous 45 minutes could prepare you for it. It will stay with me long after this Festival is over.

(Original article)

Dan Willis

Cate — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:51:00 +0000

Very few things that are this good are offered for nothing. Willis turns a potentially difficult venue to his advantage, ad-libbing off his audience and displaying obvious ease behind the microphone as people from the pub downstairs wander in and out. His set material doesn’t always match the brilliance of his crowd chat, but Willis’ sharp wit and comic timing ensure that it never fails to entertain.

(Original article)

Christina Davis

Cate — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:50:00 +0000

It would be unforgivable if a show called Sex failed to be funny, given the range of available material. Davis’ set avoids well-worn jokes, managing to be both surprising and intelligent. But Sex ultimately suffers from a somewhat disjointed delivery and a tendency to undersell her punchlines, muttering them dismissively before the audience has a chance to laugh.

(Original article)

Limmy

Cate — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:56:00 +0000

Delivering character and sketch comedy with a distinctly Glaswegian accent, Limmy has built himself a considerable following with his World of Glasgow podcasts, and followers are packed into every corner of Stand II to see his first live shows.

But Limmy’s Fringe debut is somewhat hit and miss. His portrait of a self-loathing gay man who is only interested in straight men involves a lot of crowd-pleasing limp-wristedness, but it’s hard to tell what is actually supposed to be funny about this scenario. The same goes for the video sketches that punctuate the show, from a film about a man who finds himself uncomfortably drawn to his dog’s hanging appendages, to a chap being repeatedly hit on the head by a door. These are cheap laughs, but he has a perfectly willing audience.

Where Limmy does shine is in creating occasionally believable characters: a man argues with his wife after hiring their child to a money lender while a chav imagines the social hierarchy that might exist if his kitchen utensils came alive. These surreal situations with familiar faces are the high points of his set and are better timed than the videos, which simply assault us with a single overplayed joke.

(Original article)

Jon Richardson

Cate — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:55:00 +0000

BBC6 radio host Jon Richardson is clearly at home behind a microphone. Charming and self-effacing, he moves through a show that might have been subtitled "OCD, Or How Other People Drive Me Insane," segueing effortlessly between the different elements of his set. There’s a good crowd in attendance who laugh appreciatively at stories about being stuck behind a technologically impaired man at a ticket machine, and living with other people who don’t share his standards of domestic order.

The set is mainly concerned with such every day irritations. A story premised on the different ways to eat a sandwich might have fallen completely flat in less capable hands, but here, it’s delightfully surreal. Richardson offers up our own neuroses and shows how they might be taken to extremes, the result is a kind of madness not unimaginably far from real life. What doesn’t always work is Richardson’s audience interaction. This doesn’t offer anything particularly funny, and he is only occasionally quick enough to work with our comments. However, these conversations are brief, and although they don’t add much to our enjoyment, nor do they detract from an otherwise high quality show.

(Original article)

Stan Stanley

Cate — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:53:00 +0000

Stanley’s theme of embarrassment attempts to hold together this jumbled set, with no transition between gags about his parents and standard jokes about Harry Potter and the War on Terror. His finale is a re-enactment of the show’s best visual humour, which only reminds us that if these bits had been funny enough to repeat a second time, he wouldn’t actually have to

(Original article)