VIDEO: Intelligent Finance Comedy Awards 2008

4:06pm Monday 25th August 2008

One of the highest awards on the comedy circuit it has previously been awarded to the likes of Stephen Fry, Frank Skinner, Steve Coogan, Lee Evans, and Dylan Moran.

An Evening With Clive James, Assembly @ Queen’s Hall

12:05am Monday 25th August 2008

In his week on the Fringe, Aussie Clive James was finding Edinburgh grey. Grey – and very wet. Ostensibly here to promote his latest book, Cultural Amnesia, James spent his hour and a half on the former church altar preaching about almost everything but his own product (although there were a few

Hamell on Trial- The Terrorism of Everyday Life, Baby Belly

12:08am Monday 25th August 2008

Star rating ***** The bullet-headed, immaculately facial-haired one is back, updated and improved, harbouring even more anger at social injustice. But it is all under tight control, because Ed Hamell believes in getting even rather than mad.

Edward Aczel – Do I Really Have To Communicate With You?, Underbelly

12:09am Monday 25th August 2008

When is a show not a show? This is a question audiences may wish to pose to Edward Aczel, whose hour-long oddity pretty much does what it says on the badges he hands out at the end of a performance adrift in some Beckettian, joke-free void.

BBC Headroom with Ruby Wax and friends, Assembly

12:09am Saturday 23rd August 2008

Star rating: *** In her first Edinburgh appearance for 20 years, Ruby Wax grappled with mental health as part of the BBC's Headroom campaign which Auntie has designed to encourage people to look after their mental wellbeing. Mainly a web-based and, therefore, interactive concept, Headroom the Fringe show seemed a good way to reach a wider audience and to reinforce the message that it's all right to talk openly about such issues.

The School of Comedy, Pleasance 2

12:05am Thursday 21st August 2008

Star rating: *** You could call them the kids from profane, but these 12- to 16-year-olds are talented way beyond the shock value of using the most adult of language.

Carey Marx - Careyness, The Stand

12:03am Thursday 21st August 2008

Fringe comedy: Are there any taboos left in comedy? Marx dismantles them one by one in a brilliantly controlled countdown of stand-up’s 10 least acceptable topics, from misogyny – in with a bullet at number nine – to the chart-topping N-word, the ultimate comedy no-no.

Gavin Webster - Webster's Pictionary, The Stand 2

12:09am Wednesday 20th August 2008

Star rating: * Oh, dear. A clearly able club performer puts together a more elaborate hour for the Edinburgh Fringe and comes up with the comedy equivalent of juggling while wearing oven gloves.

Rhod Gilbert - the award winning mince pie, Pleasance Cabaret Bar

12:04am Wednesday 20th August 2008

Colin Somerville Star rating: **** The lovable Welsh underdog is powered by a furious frustration and inventive mind. This year's show is an all-terrain comedy vehicle which enables him to ride roughshod over the following areas: playing to 700 Belfast butchers on the corporate entertainment circuit, motorway service stations, buying new bedding, the club circuit in Ebbw Vale, showbiz types putting on a show for British troops in dangerous war zones, budget airlines and the problems facing the average 40-year-old dating a girl almost half his age. It's Gilbert's gift that none of these things seems unrelated. The only flaw is the convoluted gag about his fictional home town in Wales, and the filmed finale which acts as its flimsy punch line. It was a classic case of having to be there fully to appreciate it.

Jim Jefferies – Hammered, Udderbelly

12:01am Wednesday 20th August 2008

Colin Somerville Star rating: ***** The Australian's confrontational reputation proceeds him, but this show far exceeds that. For the first 40 minutes he is unstoppable, delving into the dark areas with surgical precision, and ripping up taboos one after another.

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