Articles by Will Roberts

Immigrant Diaries: Sajeela Kershi and Guests

Looking over my time at this year’s Fringe, there have been several topics that have come up time and time again. ISIS is probably the most prominent, with several comics eager to get their teeth into the extremist group...

Sajeela Kershi: Shallow Halal

Sajeela Kershi is firmly sat on the fence. Being brought up in a Muslim family, but still doubtful about Allah’s existence, it seems that the only thing that Kershi is sure is that she’s one hundred percent agnostic...

Chris Dugdale: Sleightly Dishonest

Being a show in the weird and wacky world that is the Fringe, I must admit, I had certain expectations of magician Chris Dugdale. You expect something ‘alternative’ or perhaps a trick that you’ve never seen before...

Ally Houston: Shandy

It’s hard to find an adjective that fully describes Ally Houston’s Shandy. Weird, subversive, dysfunctional… all these come close to describing this unique hour of stand-up, music and performance comedy...

Pippa Evans: There Are No Guilty Pleasures

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Bannermans
26th Aug, 2015

Pippa Evans is probably the most infectious person you’ll meet at this year’s Fringe. Leaning on strangers as if they were old friends, making fun at her own expense (“posh voice, no money” she describes herself) and generally being utterly charming, you fall in love with Evans within the first 5 minutes...

Tom Stade: You’re Welcome!

When Tom Stade walks on stage you can tell he’s at home. Cowboy shirt, booming voice and attitude to spare, Stade commands the stage like a rock star. It’s with this boisterous attitude that we get an hour of loud mouthed, unapologetic comedy that the Canadian has become well known for...

Aidan Goatley's 10 Films With My Dad

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Voodoo Rooms
26th Aug, 2015

It’s hard to find a better word to describe Aiden Goatley’s comedy than sweet-natured. His show, which has been visibly honed over the last five years, focuses on the relationship with his father and films, and how the two have intertwined over the years...

Kelly Kingham: Inside Out

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Just the Tonic at the Caves (Salvation Rooms)
26th Aug, 2015

Upon first meeting Kelly Kingham, you’d hardly believe he was a newcomer. 53 years old, charisma to spare and confidence on stage like no other, you’d think this North London comedian had been coming to the Fringe for years...

Leggoland

Opinions on his show aside, one simply can’t fault Colin Leggo for his sense of humour. After having his toe removed in 2004 he had complications with his leg for a further ten years until he finally had his leg amputated in May of last year...

Patrick Morris: Fairly Premature Bucket List

Patrick Morris walks on stage. Hair long and Russell Brand-esq, baggy t-shirt and skinny jeans, Morris is rocking the alternative look. Despite the Fringe being a festival of contradictions, Morris’ appearance perfectly matches his on stage persona; fidgety, fast talking, slightly awkward, almost nervous with his audience, it’s hard to describe Morris’ stand-up as anything other than unique...

Tom Allen: Both Worlds

Tom Allen is afraid of death. Not because he is unsure of the afterlife or scared of a painful passing, but rather because at his deathbed, if he carries on as he is, he’s terrified he’ll have nothing but a few good tweets to his name...

Chris Coltrane: Left-Wing Propaganda Machine

It’s amazing at times how little Chris Coltrane has to do to make his audience laugh. Whilst the audience finds their seats, he has a slide show playing of Donald Trump tweets, each more ridiculous than the last...

Aisling Bea: Plan Bea

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Gilded Balloon
25th Aug, 2015

As you walk into Aisling Bea: Plan Bea you’ll see a morph suit, dancing frantically in what can only be described as unbearable heat. Of course once the audience has sat down and helped themselves to a home-made fan, the morph suit is taken off and an out of breath and presumably sweaty Bea is revealed underneath...

Mitch Benn: That Was the Future

'I find something that I’m passionate about and then write the comedy around that'. This is how Mitch Benn writes his shows, a well-known mix of stand up and musical numbers, and this year he has fallen on the topic of the future...

Nick Revell: Feminist Porno Jihadi

No one rants quite like Nick Revell. Once he’s found a topic to get his teeth stuck into, whether that’s ISIS, the Royal family or middle class consumption, he barely draws breath for ten minutes as a barrage of rage, wit and satire comes hurtling towards you at break neck speed...

The Pin: Ten Seconds with The Pin

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Pleasance Dome
24th Aug, 2015

It’s almost impossible to see a sketch show that doesn’t have its misses; hit and miss is so much of an audience expectation it has almost become the received format. However The Pin, a double act comprised of Cambridge graduates Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen, have managed to avoid this...

Geoff Norcott: The Look of Moron

At the start of his show Geoff Norcott claims he’s a moron. ‘Clever in here, but stupid out here’, he says, going on to explain his everyday clumsiness. Yet it’s clear from the get go this is untrue; he’s a shrewd, intelligent observer of human behaviour and society, giving his set plenty of material...

Bec Hill: Caught On Tape

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Gilded Balloon
24th Aug, 2015

Creating a show focusing on the idea of regret is frankly an extremely brave one: regret be an extremely sad and prickly topic, something which Hill alludes to in the first five minutes of her show...

The Soaking of Vera Shrimp

The Soaking of Vera Shrimp may seem at first like a fairly quirky premise. A one-woman play, it follows the eponymous Vera, a fourteen-year-old girl on the verge of adulthood who can feel different emotions when she touches raindrops...

Idiots

The act of judging is at the centre of The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 19th century masterpiece about a naïve and simple minded prince in St Petersburg. Jonnie Bayfield, Idiots’ leading man, on the other hand urges his audience not to do the same; “the tone may shift, but tones are meant to be shifted” he warns; “it’s contemporary theatre” he exclaims in his freestyle monologue before the ‘true’ play begins...

Honest to Godley!

As I walk into Honest to Godley, Janey Godley is already onstage, hand on hip and chatting to her audience. She’s offering flyers as fan substitutes, and getting in some early banter...

Anna Morris: It's Got To Be Perfect

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Voodoo Rooms
20th Aug, 2015

I’ve always somewhat despised weddings. Often just a swamp of superficiality, they just seem like an unnecessary, blown-out party in which the bride gets her superficial day in the sun...

Chris Betts: Social Animal

Who knew that bartending could be so interesting? In his debut show at the Fringe, Chris Betts, a Canadian comic with what can only be described as a beard to die for (which you can’t touch), relates what he’s seen and learnt from the drunk human race after 13 years of working behind a bar...

Sarah Kendall: A Day in October

A Day in October centres around Kendall’s teenage years at a rough high-school in Newcastle, Australia. Kendall at this point is far from the confident comedian we see before us; she has acne all across her face, her weird dreams have even her therapist befuddled and her main objective is to remain invisible...

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