It can be very hard to really enjoy a stage adaptation of a book or film you’ve enjoyed and this clumsy version of K Pax is definitely no exception. Part of the problem is that Jeff Daniels and Kevin Spacey did a pretty good job with the tale of aliens and mental illness but the [...]

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The festival just wouldn’t be the same without John Hegley. Although he isn’t offering anything particularly new (poems about wearing glasses, living in Luton… no dogs this year, which was a bit disappointing), he is as entertaining as always.
Hegley appeals to his audience on many different levels, as he switches between comedy performance, music [...]

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I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this show, as my only knowledge of Russell Brand was as the presenter of Big Brother’s Efourum, which was alright but a bit boring. This show thankfully has no mention of Big Brother but is about Brand’s struggle over the last few years with a heroin and [...]

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While exhibiting great energy and pace, H-BAM: Stop Fist Fighting You’re Pregnant falls short of making people laugh consistently. By nature sketch shows are hit and miss, and any punter that is used to them is used to that, but riding a wave of rave reviews both this and last, H-BAM should have upped the [...]

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Folk parody may not be at the top of your list of things to see at this year’s festival, so just think of it as comedy with the added bonus of some lovely guitar playing.
After gaining a Perrier Newcomer nomination last year, the Kiwi duo are back with new songs and new banter. Playing in [...]

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If, like me, you’re looking to take those first tentative steps into world music you couldn’t find a better place to start than this. In front of an expectant audience, Forcione delivers with the ease and style that he’’s become world renowned for.
Drawing on a number of styles and genres, Forcione and his associates play [...]

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The only thing that this performance lacked was the audience it deserved. From beginning to end, this pair from New Mexico (Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez respectively) took the audience on a dream trip, creating worlds with the flick of a hand or the twitch of a lip.
They not only have stage presence and chemistry [...]

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The Axis of Evil Tour is a show based on an excellent premise – the perspectives of three Arab-Americans living in post-9/11 America. What these men deliver goes far beyond the tales of airport injustice you would expect and provides an excellent insight into life on the other side of the white-Christian picket fence.
The show [...]

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Sidling onstage like a drunken, slimy Woody Allen in Phillip Schofield’s wardrobe comes Arnold Brown. His subject matter (terrorism, celebrity, being Jewish) is timeless and accessible but his shambling delivery grates from the opening mumble about anti-Semitism, and is liable to make your skin want to eat itself. (I purposefully stopped to browse the gents’ [...]

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After forty shows in thirteen days this reviewer needed something explosive to refuel his interest and thankfully it came in the form of Noise Ensemble; a frenetic bout of percussive delight.
Based around a ten-piece percussion group, Noise Ensemble is a wickedly loud and energetic display of at drumming at its best. Okay, it’s not as [...]

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