Comedy

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Ivor Dembina: Old Jewish Jokes ★★★★

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Ivor Dembina: Old Jewish Jokes ★★★★

Thirty years ago I saw Ivor Dembina walk onto a stage in north London and announce to an unsuspecting crowd: “Right, let’s have the Hatikvah” (a 19th-century Jewish poem and Israel's national anthem). It was an early sign of the path he was looking to tread. One of my favourite…

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In the Weeds ★★★★

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In the Weeds ★★★★

"I don't wanna leave: it's so nice having people here. Cooo-al!" It's approaching midnight in a miserable, drizzly Edinburgh and Liza Treyger has come to the end of her show. "So enjoy the rest of your lives. Go to therapy and then you could be here too, in a trailer." Treyger, 31…

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Party Nights ★★★★

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Party Nights ★★★★

As a rule, I don't repeatedly tell 50-odd people in a moderately sized room that "I deserve salmon" on a weekday evening, but such is the force of the Fringe and Emmy Blotnick's bubbly nature that it would have been churlish not to have joined in. The 31-year-old New…

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Hero Worship ★★

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Hero Worship ★★

Joel Sanders, who has lived on a canal boat moored mainly in the south of England for the past decade, has two shows at the Fringe. One, called Angry Boater, is about living on a boat with hypertension, few practical skills and against the advice of his late father who told him: "Jews don't live…

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Boycotted: Comedy from Israel ★★★

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Boycotted: Comedy from Israel ★★★

It's good to see three Israeli comedians pitching up at the Edinburgh Fringe, with a show free of government sponsorship and therefore – contrary to allusions in the title – not in danger of being boycotted by the local pro-Palestinian brigade. It's the first day of the trio's…

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Friday Night Sinner! ★★★

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Friday Night Sinner! ★★★

It was a Friday night and as I wasn't going to a Friday night dinner, so what better way to spend it than by going to Candy Gigi's mock-horror musical Friday Night Sinner!? The eerily lit action loosely follows the plot of Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, with Gigi – aka 30-year-old Brit…

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Disabled Coconut ★★★★

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Disabled Coconut ★★★★

Aaron Simmonds has spent the past year working on his story-based show about how he was trolled online for not being disabled enough and it's clearly been time well spent. The 29-year-old comic, who has cerebral palsy and has used a wheelchair since he was 15, particularly loves being…