All posts by Georgianell

We’re getting close! 2 Days to go – Tom Binns as Ian D. Montfort

Already picked by The Times and The Guardian as shows to see in 2011, Ian D. Montfort’s second Edinburgh Fringe Festival offering, ‘Spirit Comedium‘ is looking to be a huge hit.

Last year Tom did a lunchtime experiment in cold reading and mind magic, developing a character that became a critically acclaimed, sell-out smash. It came as a total surprise for Tom Binns and was one of the few things he wasn’t able to predict with his newly learned Spirit Medium skills.

Tom has already proven himself to be a masterful character comic as the man behind every one’s favourite hospital radio DJ Ivan Brackenbury.

“I was blown away. It wasn’t really a complete or finished show it was a dry run for this year. I was too wrapped up in learning and performing the skills of a mind magician to give the comedy the attention I would have liked. I’ve been performing Ian D for a year now and talking to the dead has become second nature to me so that frees me up nicely to think more about the character and jokes – I prefer it when I’m focused on the comedy rather than the magic”

The List Talks High Art and Comedy with Hannah Gadsby

The List‘s Jon Richardson today considers the fine line between High Art and Comedy, Hannah says,

“Stand-up and qualified art curator Hannah Gadsby. She’s conducted humorous general gallery tours in her native Australia, but for the Fringe she’s straddling a fine line of reverence and mockery of representations of the Virgin Mary. Densely researched, Mary. Contrary is a ‘serious lecture that I tell in a more irreverent manner with jokes and a few personal stories thrown in. Because it’s slightly heavier subject matter than normal, the laughs are easier to extract.’

Her lectures draw those who ‘want to see a different kind of comedy, people who are genuinely into art but intimidated by gallery spaces and those who like feeling superior to other people’. And she hopes to encourage more critical art appraisal. ‘It’s important they take whatever they want from art and if they think something’s rubbish, that’s a perfectly valid response. A gallery or a big comedy venue doesn’t automatically convey merit; art should elicit emotion and whether that’s good, bad or indifferent, people need to trust their initial instincts. But laugh at mine!’”

Check out the whole article at The List website

Or for more information on Mary. Contrary. go to Hannah’s show page 

Or buy tickets Here!

Only 3 days till it all kicks off – Fiona O’Loughlin

Fiona O’Loughlin is known in Australia as The Queen of Comedy, when the Alice Springs mother of five Fiona O’Loughlin started doing stand-up later in life than most comics, her hilarious stories of housewifery and motherhood were an immediate hit. Her first festival show, for example – Fiona And Her Sister (And Some Weird Guy) earned her the Best Newcomer Award at the 2001 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. She is also a regular sight on Australian television with guest appearances on Sunrise, Good News Week, Spicks and Specks, The World Stands Up and a heap of Comedy Festival Galas.

 

 

In more recent years Fiona has overcome a well-documented ‘battle with the bottle’ after collapsing drunk onstage at a prestigious theatre performance in Brisbane in front of 600 alarmed audience members; her private addiction became instant national front page news, and from there Fiona’s journey back from the brink began. This, like the other aspects of her life, has become ‘material’ for her stand-up. And Fiona is even funnier sober.

“O’Loughlin thought she needed a double vodka to be funny. This show proves that she doesn’t” Independent Weekly

Join Fiona facing her demons at her 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival Show from the 3rd till the 28th of August (not 15th) at the Gilded Balloon

So far this year Fiona has been picked by London is Funny in their Edinburgh is Funny blog for both their Who’s who of Foreign Acts and their Who’s who of comedy in the face of disaster

Find out all you need to know here

And buy tickets here