Reviews by Chris Omaweng

Suzi Ruffell is, as things stand, very happy. Which potentially makes for a stand-up show that’s terrible at worst and unconventional at best, because comedy is, generally speaking, best when it’s about how bad someone’s life is, and therefore the audience can at least feel relieved that, whatever issues they are encountering at the time, they are relatively minor to … [Read more...]

There have been simmering tensions for some time between Roy (George Lewthwaite) and his wife Sam (Lucrezia Galeone). Roy’s best friend forever is Aaron (Ciaran Lawless) and Sam’s best friend forever is Claire (Emilie Finkielman). The four have been gathering each Friday night for drinks and ‘truth or dare’ type games. Aaron, in turn, is seeing Laz Annya (Nia … [Read more...]

I wasn’t the only one slightly disappointed that a show called The Prosecco Express doesn’t involve the consumption of prosecco either before, during or afterwards (unless, of course, as I found myself doing later that evening, buying one from the bar). The usual banter that comedians tend to have with the front row was warm and engaging, made all the more so by a … [Read more...]

Pre-show, the cast are on stage. Unusual, perhaps, but hardly unprecedented. What is striking about the characters in Fulfilment is that before the lights go down and the show starts proper, they have got to be the glummest looking people I’ve ever come across at the Edinburgh Fringe. I’ve been high fived by stand-up comedians on entry, or otherwise been very warmly … [Read more...]

There’s less toilet humour and more spoken dialogue in an episode of Mr Bean than there is in Fishbowl, a slapstick comedy that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to achieve, pulling in the laughs to a family-friendly audience. Three people with (perhaps typically) wildly different interests and personalities, live in adjacent apartments. Stage left is a woman who … [Read more...]

It was difficult to keep up with the twenty-eight strong team on stage in Big Band Does Broadway (eighteen musicians and ten singers and dancers). The show’s producers, Scott Coltman (also director) and Jonnie Grant (also musical director), together with choreographer Danielle Logan, have put together an hour-long extravaganza that squeezes in more tunes from more … [Read more...]

Frances Shea (Ella Blackburn) is off to spit on a nun’s grave, flying out from London to Dublin to do so. This isn’t an anti-religious play (though technically it’s an unreligious one), and in the course of West of Frances’ narrative, it becomes clear that Frances’ late grandmother, of the same name, used to keep a record of people who had crossed her, and would then … [Read more...]

There’s something subversive about Maria Shehata taking phone calls from her father whilst her show is in progress, and I get the feeling that the people most likely to be irritated by this are people who themselves use their phones whilst a performance is in progress. The irony was not lost on the rest of us. There are pleasant introductions, on both sides, before … [Read more...]

Spoken dialogue is scarce in Birth, and where it does exist, it is often drowned out by the show’s music, performed live by its composer, Alex Judd. Private conversations are thus kept largely private, and all that tends to be heard clearly are character names - Katherine, Emily, James, Jasmine. There is commonality between them, as it gradually becomes clear, but the … [Read more...]