Today’s interview is with Finlay Christie, a comic who has found success on the stage and online, with sell-out shows at the fringe and a popular YouTube channel that can bring hundreds of thousands of viewers to his material. His show ‘I Deserve This’ sees the 19-year-old question his success and how he balances the different needs of comedy for the online and offline worlds.
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Today’s interview is with Alison Larkin. She has brought “Grief… A Comedy” to the Fringe. It’s a solo piece about Alison finding love late in her life before her partner died. Alison’s grief took her on an unexpected journey full of hope, laughter, and a cameo from Archbishop Desmond Tutu… as all good stories must.
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For our second preview of the Edinburgh Fringe, Ewan Spence talks to Darrell Martin, owner of the Just The Tonic venues. We talk about starting out at the Edinburgh Fringe with the Big Value Comedy Showcase before moving into venue management; the mix of ticketing at the Fringe (from Free to full price) and which Darrell thinks is best; the cost of attending the Fringe; and finally touch on the impact of politicial decision in Edinburgh and Scotland threaten the Festival.
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For our second preview of the Edinburgh Fringe, Ewan Spence talks to Julie Lærkholm, the Community Engagement Officer at the Fringe Society to find out more about how the Fringe works with local communities, organisations, and schools, to make the Fringe more accessible to Edinburgh residents and the visiting audiences.
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Ewan Spence is joined by theatre producer Fin Ross Russell (The Collie’s Shed) to look back at this year’s Fringe, the preparation required, what happens next, and plans for 2024.
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Cat Shit Crazy, with either an exclamation mark replacing the eye or a censored graphic over the title, caught a lot of attention as the Fringe started, in part due to the aforementioned ‘we can’t have that sort of thing on display at the Fringe’. Sometimes the best publicity comes as a surprise. But the show is about much more than that.
Hollywood-based Cindy D’Andrea’s autobiographical show is much more than that. At one of the darkest moments in her life, her best friend suggested she should get a cat. Moving from I hate cats, to countless feline friends over the last fourteen years, this is a story about a woman, a cat, and unconditional love.
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What happens when you decide to make your own magic from whatever you can find around you? What happens when you add a dash of robotics to the magic? And then an old tomato soup can from the bin to be your next robot assistant.
That’s the world of Mario The Maker Magician. It’s a family show packed with slapstick humour, handmade robots, and a lot of skill. THere’s a mix of science, creativity, showmanship, and laughter that is incredibly hard to balance. Mario makes it look easy.
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One part of the Edinburgh Fringe for every performer is being judged; by the audiences, by the industry, by the reviewers, and pretty much every part of the business. Which makes it all the more interesting that Colleen Lavin has not only built a robot to judge her, but it’s doing it live, every day, in from of an audience.
In ‘’Do The Robots Think I’m Funny’, Colleen asks what it means to be insecure in the modern world, how comedy and improv mix, and the differences between a room in Chicago and a room in Edinburgh. Underneath it all is the nagging question of the moment… will we all be replaced by robots?
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Featuring cameos from Columbo and The Eiffel Tower, here’s my chat with Sid Singh. His Fringe show for 2023 is “Table for One”, where Sing talks about his dual career as a stand-up comic and human rights advocate – careers that see him taking on the US Government over human rights before dealing with deportation from India while staying in Germany.
The show, which is supporting and raising money for the Centre for Gender and Refugee Studies, asks how you can fight the good fight while you are far away from home.
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