Her show takes in a whole host of topics — from growing up as a female in Saudi Arabia, to dating, the MeToo movement and Repeal the 8th — there are plenty of hard-hitting moments in this show, and many dark jokes to go alongside them, but Barri has an instant charm that always makes the audience feel at ease, that this is a safe space in which to explore powerful concepts and ideas. Zahra also has plenty to say about the pitfalls of social media.
There is a great structure to the narrative of this show, coupled with her self-assured delivery, brings a fantastic energy into the room. Zahra is not a princess; this show proves she is a warrior of comedy. The entire room was attentive, expectant. Abbie brings an hour of comedy about getting older, the intrusiveness of technology in modern life and about her time working as a performer on a cruise ship.
All the time, there is an undercurrent to these stories — a powerful tone of feminism upon which the narrative hangs. Abbie wonderfully flips the conventions that desperately need flipping with hard-line and jet black humour, not afraid to cut through the stereotypes with sharp teeth. All the while, this is a show about always being who you are and chasing your dreams. Abbie has a tremendous talant for finding the sideways perspective, bringing a different view to some very important themes.
Gabriel takes to the stage first, with a good amount of energy and charm to welcome the audience into his world. His comedy is sharp, flipping the conventions of racism and appearance. There are stories about how he was bullied growing up but Gabriel always presents a light-heartedness to his anecdotes. When Sam takes to the stage, there is a different energy — his is more laid back and presents a different perspective to the themes from the first half, looking at another side of racism and judging people by their appearances.
- Confessions 2. Five X-Rated Adult Tales.
- !
- !
The room was warm so ice water was to be dispensed if anyone said the safe word. I loved that touch. Charmian Hughes also went to the trouble of making fans from her flyers. Friendly, considerate, thoughtful and quick thinking. These qualities come though in her material too so that her audiences see a well thought out, funny, delightful show that makes you feel good and makes you think. There is no option but to love it. Hughes is very charismatic and has a superb way of telling the beautifully written stories and material.
Everyone in the room is completely invested and really enjoying themselves no matter what age or gender they are or identify as. It is a performance that really encapsulates all of the frustrations, trials and triumphant feeling felt in seeking a sexy, supportive, non-bank account breaking bra. So, the show itself. We were all laughing, but quite strangely at different times, picked off by her punchline sniper rifle.
Mansplaining Feminism Talbot is a great feminist. From the very start of the show, to the vox pops from well-known faces that are dotted throughout this hour of sharply-written sketch comedy, this is never in doubt. One very strong narrative that runs through this show is that Rosie Holt just wants a compliment on her physical appearance — one compliment in particular.
Both simmering beneath this show and in full plain view are many important lessons that everybody needs to learn — about judging people on physical appearances, about how to fundamentally act around other people, about treating each other with respect. All of these lessons are presented by two performers whose energy, chemistry and passion radiates from the stage.
The sketches themselves are perfectly written and timed, ranging from a beautiful parody of periods, original sin in the garden of Eden to how social media can draw out and blow up the smallest of disagreements. There is no doubt that this is a very important show, absolutely on point with the long-overdue movements sweeping society today. Holt and Talbot bring all of this to their show with amazing craft, wisdom and intelligence. It's , where every other comedian is discussing feminism and political correctness Rosie Holt and Christian Talbot provide some kind of escapism with imaginative sketches parodying the issues.
Fast-paced, fun and light-hearted, Mansplaining Feminism looks at the likes of internet dating, right-wing grandparents, catcalling, the use of social media to expose foibles and a woman's physical features through a range of well thought-out, tongue-in-cheek, closely observed sketches. Videos covering changes feature fellow comics telling him: Talbot is the more shy and understated, projecting a sense of insecurity, while Holt is the more committed performer: The crowd in this packed sweaty room concur, having as much fun as the performers clearly are.
He has a distinctive look, and an infectious style. He is as home working the audience as he is in delivering his well-crafted set and even in these latter days of the Fringe is still packing out his venue on a daily basis. But he needs our help. He has had Twitter spats with a number of people and organisations and has been blocked by them, hence unable to vent his views further. It is not a one way street though.
Mor goes through the early minutes finding out about his audience, there are a large number of repeat attenders but it is a chatty lot, just the kind of gig he thrives on, in fact he says he prefers weird gigs. It has to be said the room was behind him with everything he said. Mor is a class act, always has been, and at the very top of his games. Mr Kearse is, as he acknowledges in the show, deliberately provocative with some of his statements and viewpoints, coming across variously as rampantly self-interested, prone to generalisations and stereotypes, and with a penchant for punching down rather than up.
He does also however, aim his ire at both the right and the left, highlighting stupidity on both sides. Structurally, the show works well, with gentle transitions between stories indicators and gear changes, rather than handbrake turns and everything linked to a coherent central theme. He makes a valid and well-argued point about making space for all points of view — even if they are distasteful — and on that we do agree. Huge If True Paul Foxcroft has all the confidence you would expect from a man who has improvised with the best for most of his career.
But this is tightly scripted stuff. There will, one day, be an incredibly dark hour from Foxcroft on his relationship with his family, and it is hinted at all through this one, adding a little frisson of danger to an otherwise well-mannered show.
The Latest News and Reviews from The Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival
We wind down with a few moments pondering the worth of reviews, illustrated by reading a few from public review websites before ramping up the excitement to eleven with that game of FinaleQuest. I might just keep going until I get to play, it is ridiculous amounts of fun. This is his first solo hour, amazingly, and it is a cleverly-crafted mix of comedy genres. Not many performers can pull this off but he does so with aplomb. Still, he seems justifiably peeved that a tour he was booked on referenced his crash in its advertising.
Along the way we are treated to a contemporizing tour of his personal zeitgeist; Brexit, Tube Travel, potentially imminent fatherhood, racism — all of which varied in quality, but was entertaining enough. My instinct tells me that if Daniel can weave a show where his jokes bounce off the audience interactions, a rainbow may sunder the sky along which path should lie his comedy gold.
Melt In his stand-up show Melt, Dave Green projects himself as a slightly incompetent, slightly unconfident Everyman, stressing the small stuff. Luckily for his comedy, the upside of overthinking even the most mundane of everyday situations also applies to gags, giving them a quirky edge. They are pithy and offbeat, and this show establishes him as a keen writer who approaches the everyday from a different angle. Yet they come from such an obvious place of love, they cannot possibly taken the wrong way.
Even though he is still alive, the comic sometimes refers to him in the past tense, so far has the man he knew faded. While this is heartbreaking, Day focuses almost entirely on painting a portrait of what manner of man his dad was. Primarily he was a grafter who had to work for everything. But Conor Drum has turned some of the most cringe-inducing memories of his time in a band into something valuable — the backbone of this highly entertaining hour of anecdotes. He had been a happy-go-lucky, if mischievous, child — albeit one who managed to get kept back a year in playschool and went on to indulge in some dangerously unsupervised experiments with his best pal.
But he seemed to undergo a transformation into a sullen greasy-haired, angst-ridden rocker almost overnight. The ravers who bullied him in his Dublin school called him Mmmbop, because they thought his long hair made him look like the band Hanson, while his parents were clearly controlling Nazis who never let him do anything. Melt Solidly enjoyable stand-up comedy with flashes of brilliance.
The structure here is worthy of a seasoned professional comic, and the delivery is as confident and assured as they come. While his interactions with the audience feel a little forced on occasion, it is clear that Green is generally a relaxed and confident performer, more than adequately prepared by his already relatively illustrious comedy career to make his somewhat belated Edinburgh Fringe debut.
The promotional material for Melt is misleading in some other key ways. Appropriately, Eat Sleep Shit Shag is an hour of amusing anecdotes undercut with mock bitterness that serve to give her comedy an acerbic aftertaste. With her strong Essex accent and breakneck pace, her delivery is both a boon and a drawback; her high energy levels ensure that the tempo remains upbeat despite the often pessimistic subject matter, but the rapid-fire diction makes it difficult to keep up at times.
The same can be said for her overall demeanour. Her rants are imbued with impeccable comic insight and her prickly dryness is what gives the material punch, but the contempt often spills over into standoffishness, leaving the audience unsure of the ground they stand on.
For a show that relies heavily on her catalogue of failures failure to get a mortgage, a marriage, 2. Yet Cardwell succeeds in creating a warm feeling the room, a cocoon of empathy amid the drunken hedonism outside the door. Our host for the hour is Sylvia Sceptre — real name Careena Fenton — and it's never quite explained whether she's a medium, a spirit guide, or one of the deceased themselves.
But whatever her role, she's a bright and capable character, filling the crypt-like performance space with both wit and conjuring skill. The magic is well-worked, and at times genuinely befuddling; there's an emphasis on mind-reading, as befits the theme of seeing the world from the other side of the veil. Fenton is kind and generous with those she gets up on-stage, always understanding that it's her job to make her volunteers look good, and she has instant in-character responses to the minor distractions of a free-festival venue. A couple of the big set-piece tricks are really quite similar to each other, but there's enough of a twist in their presentation that I'll let that point pass by.
Some humour is provided by an invisible psychic cat — if you've got the imagination, Fenton's patter and performance will make you believe it's really there in the room — and there's a stonker of a prop hiding under an intriguingly-draped tablecloth. The background music's well-judged too, striking enough to set the atmosphere, but used sparingly enough that it doesn't become intrusive.
Our Kid There can be no doubt that Stephen Bailey is a comedian who is going places. Stephen Bailey is in evidence from the start, getting people seated explaining the format and them we are off into an hour of him at his very best. Bailey shies away from much involvement in current affairs, he is more intent in talking about family, friends, his gays, friend Natalie, dating and interacting with the audience.
He is a blatant flirt, chatting to two men in particular, one gay, one straight currently, he adds and gets piles and piles of laughs from everyone there.
Bar Guide 2013: Listings A-Z
His early life is briefly included as are a couple of his amours, he can say things that a different comic may cause offence with but such is his charisma nobody can object in anyway. However, his particular brand of observational comedy with crisp one-liners is refreshing and original. He is able to talk about a whole range of subjects, from suicide to Brexit, from sport to reality TV with a fantastic speed and sharpness.
His easy charm on the stage disarms the audience, particularly when his comedy pushes on potentially awkward topics, such as anxiety. The levity in his humour can push through boundaries in a daring way without ever making the audience feel uncomfortable. This is an hour of self-aware and intelligent comedy from Alex Kealy which weaves between a whole range of subjects seamlessly. This is a bold and daring comedian that should not be missed. Hail Mary There are so many strong shows at the Edinburgh Fringe this year it is easy for some to get overlooked by reviewers.
Sean McLoughlin doesn't seem to have had many critics in so far but he doesn't seem to be having much difficulty getting fans into his show. I had to squeeze into the back for this one and watch it on a bench facing the wrong way. It was worth the stiff neck though. McLoughlin has become a Fringe regular in recent years and is the epitome of the skilful stand-up. He is self-mocking but sharp and confident, angry but not to the extent that it gets on your nerves.
He also looks the part. Imagine if Lionel Messi had decided to go on a crash diet, not sleep for a week, don a shirt and jacket and lurk in a basement in Edinburgh for August. McLoughlin clearly knows what he is doing. Hail Mary is initially about getting older, about your ambitions not working out as you had planned. It is also about our obsession wth technology and how our humanity is being relentlessly taken over by social media and perhaps we don't even realise it.
He's mad as hell and not going to take it any more, but first of all he is going to make us laugh. He cuts an incredible charming and likeable figure on the stage, dotting his set with audience interactions that never makes those members feel uncomfortable. He is a comedian with a clear pedigree of writing well-crafted jokes, with a clarity and confidence of delivery that is at the height of the profession — even with jokes that he self-admittedly only wrote that morning, making this even more impressive. Inevitably, a show about falling in love and all the foibles around it — Daniel is trying to be a better person for his new partner — there are lots of jokes about sex which are presented in a very accessible way and never strays into uncomfortable territory.
His comedic talents also turn very well to fantastic word play and the flipping of the tropes and convention associated with love. This show is a fantastic way to start the day at the Fringe, a highly enjoyable and hilarious hour of comedy that needs to be seen. Chameleon, Comedian, Corinthian and Caricature From the very beginning of this show, with Nathaniel welcoming the audience into the room with an easy and warm charm, it is clear that he is an expert performer.
This is a show about how his lead to the break up of his relationship and how this is his first Edinburgh show since then.
It is a show that explores the paths and avenues of artistry, full of sideways glances at a wide array of subjects — the influential figures in his life such as David Bowie, Coco Pops and pretty much everything in between. Every moment is well-constructed, moves with purpose and confidence and displays exactly what the performer is capable of. Nathaniel Metcalfe has put together a show here that has everything.
There is superb use of multimedia — a break-down of a bizarre Jeremy Irons interview and subsequent return later in the show is a particular highlight. This was a hour of comedy that was an absolute pleasure to be part of. He has a great story-telling style, which builds his own narrative throughout the show and leaves room for big, silly jokes while still moving round dark corners. When his does meander away from the light, his warmth and friendliness reassures the audience that everything is still OK, and that there is a big, daft laugh right around the corner. He has a good talent for bringing the crowd along with him on his journey.
His relaxed style is the perfect night-cap to a day at the Fringe, easy-going comedy with an edge that will round off your day in the right way. The stories told will change from performance to performance, as is the nature of the structure; one the night I was in attendance, there were stories of drunken excess, new loves and heartbreak that spanned the globe from Australia to South America. There is a brutal honesty to the stories that are being told by Aidan, engaging with a great blend of easy charm. Sometimes, the stories pushed on the taboo, with tales of sex, but these are dealt with a sensitivity that never puts the audience on edge.
Aidan carries the structure of the show with a great energy that brings the audience along with him on his adventures, stepping in to the levity of situations while finding the darker side of things as well. His 18 months of backpacking around Australia, Myanmar, Kuala Lumpur and others form the basis of his likeable hour of standup, which keeps its audience chuckling appreciatively even if it never quite takes off. His anecdotes of minimum-wage bar work, dealing with hecklers and having his beard stroked in foreign cities are always good fun, but start to feel digressionary, even rambling, as the hour goes on.
Logan is an affable guy with great comic delivery, but his show is definitely wanting tighter focus. It's bad news, I'm afraid: World War III has broken out, and we're the last few survivors to have made it down to this cramped and sealed bunker. But all's not lost, for we have a stout-hearted guide to lead us through the coming darkness; a strong, inspiring, practical woman, who won't let the little matter of nuclear Armageddon disrupt her well-ordered life.
Or at least… she seems to see it that way. The woman in question is Lotta Quizeen, the long-time alter ego of performer Katie Richardson, whose Thatcheresque imperiousness and love of domestic regimen make her the ideal candidate to organise a brave new world underground. She has roles in mind for all of us, and she's stockpiled plenty of cake mix; and if this all seems a touch gender-stereotyped for your taste, don't worry, she's sorted out the generator too.
But her son Hugo's been out on patrol, and he's really quite late returning. He'll be all right, of course. He's just a bit delayed. The story that follows is cleverly constructed, with hints of something even darker than nuclear winter poking at the edges of Lotta's mind. Unexplained motifs — from her obsession with the wild dogs hunting outside, to her out-of-place musings on forgiveness — together suggest there's something about Lotta's recent history which she isn't quite letting on. By the end, when it's all snapped into place, we have a renewed understanding of how she came to be in this bunker, and of what life after the bomb went off might actually mean to her.
He recently turned 30 and has slipped to fourth in the Google search results after: In a hysterical hour of comedy Hail Mary explores faith, love and technology as religion. He played the Royal Albert Hall a couple of months ago but finds himself performing a free Fringe show in a basement and wonders how he got here. Technology has also impacted on his love life — he was in a long-distance relationship for a year and relied on tech to keep the romance alive. If a joke ever fails to land, he becomes bitter which is often funnier than the dud gag itself.
The set finishes with an exploration of religion from the perspective of a lapsed Catholic who has recently rediscovered his faith. The comic then skilfully ties the narrative about technology and religion together with the audience laughing and whooping to the end. He provides a high energy, solidly funny gig to hoards of people who have flocked to see him on word of mouth recommendations alone. One day, Lee Kyle found himself kicking potatoes into the sea, and he's got the video evidence to prove it. The route that led him to believing this was a productive and typical way to spend an afternoon is outlined in an hour propelled via his genial and warmhearted persona.
Multiple sequences evidence an ability to comically work through novel ideas, even if sometimes these are stretched beyond their limits. A reworking of the alphabet is initially funny, then outstays its welcome, then reasserts its comic value through a well-structured payoff. Another section about repeated sounds in words could do with some trimming too, even though it is testament to a creative comic mind. Indeed, there's considerably more technical cleverness going on here than might be apparent at first, as callbacks and recurring themes bubble to the surface in unexpected ways. But there's an odd incongruity between these self-contained comic ideas, and the darker themes that pepper the show.
Kyle recounts his mental health issues, and how these both inform, and construct barriers to, his comedy. Given his evident skill in weaving together multiple narrative strands, it's a shame the interplay between the serious and the comic isn't more fluid. The ending successfully draws all the thematic threads together in a manner that reveals considerable technical skill, and it's good to experience a show that offers a meaningful denouement. If only the journey there had been smoother. He is one of many comics on the circuit choosing mental health as his comedy fodder of choice covering both anorexia while trying to plug his new book, Weight Expectations and anxiety as he encourages people to seek help should they require it.
Firstly, he dissects the language we use around mental health explaining that we all have mental health, it is mental illness which causes difficulties. But even that, Chawner explains, is all wrong as he asks why we insist on focussing on the negative instead of the positive? Chawner is striving to improve this as part of a working group which includes members of parliament and a stint as a presenter on a documentary about body dysmorphia.
Sounds like a barrel of laughs right? Well remarkably Dave Chawner does manage to make this a show littered with laughs commanding the microphone with confidence. He is clearly passionate about the topic he has chosen to base his show around and this sometimes causes mild cases of verbal diarrhoea which are hard to keep up with as the words tumble at increasing speed from his mouth. However, as much as the point is to make the room laugh, his material is delivered with care and compassion for those potentially experiencing any mental illness while listening and he even gives the names of places to go should one require it.
Travelling, meditation and breathing are not the only options available he muses, despite the advice he once gave out under pressure. Making light of a serious situation is a fine art and one which Dave Chawner masters with some skill. And with no price tag attached to this show it is a fine art which all can, and should, hear. Ahir Shah has returned to Edinburgh with a super-powered hour of standup, a clear step up from his show which was nominated for Best Show just saying.
The backdrop to Duffer is the Windrush scandal from earlier this year. This was no one-off, as Shah describes how his paternal grandmother was deported 25 years ago back to India, treated like an inconvenient statistic more than a human being, in precisely the way the Windrush generation have been today. Duffer is what she used to call young Ahir. Last year, Shah visited his gran for the first time since she was unceremoniously booted out of Britain. He knew it would also be the last time he would ever see her. As a piece of contemporaneous comedy, examining the effects of cruel and unnecessary policy, it cuts right to the bone.
It would be nice if a few Conservative Ministers dropped in to watch it. The infamous Andrew Lawrence, whose career path was explored in a Sky Arts documentary, seems to have turned degrees on the idea, bringing an all clean show to the fringe this year. Kearse plays up to his presumed intolerant views by putting on a character that is prime for satire. Very rarely do you find someone truly, naturally funny, especially when talking about such a dry subject such as their political stance.
As the most recent winner of Scottish Comedian of the Year, Kearse has proven himself, perhaps not as the most naturally charismatic performer, but as a solid joke writer who can stretch out even the most uneven premises into laughter. Even though it is technically a show where the host invites guest stand-up comedians to do their own few minutes of material after she delivers her own bits, there is a new format to take into consideration in the proceedings.
The format, created by the host Dalia Malek, sees two co-hosts, seated by the side of the stage, interrupt clue is in the name! As any compilation show, the enjoyment of it is inevitably linked to the guests chosen and the particular format makes that even more important as not everyone can think on their feet, be interrupted and get back into the prepared material they came to perform. The host is welcoming, natural and very funny, delivering her sharp, at times dark material based on the struggles of being an Egyptian American with excellent timing.
One of the acts mentioned at the end how good an experience being part of this show was, as performing a set material for a whole month can sometimes make you start losing the passion for it and being interrupted and prompted with insightful questions will have you on your feet, creating on the spot or remembering older material, and fall in love with the craft all over again.
Both audiences and acts should be giving the Interruption Show a look. For tickets and more information click here! That world belongs to Will Mars, a dedicated comedian with a surreptitious story to tell. Miss Sylvia is a time-travelling clairvoyant, who never fails to captivate the audience as she explains her life story with the help of Gothic mementos and audience participation. This makes the show feel creative and unique, inviting the audience to question their senses, what they perceive as real or unreal. Created and played by Careena Fenton, Miss Sylvia also provides commentary on themes such as female hysteria and Victorian medicine with her unique blend of comedic eccentricity and dark storytelling.
Full disclosure, I have always been a big fan of Martha McBrier. But she is a comedy Midas: Her story is packed with shoplifting, corporal punishment, religious terrors, chain smoking and Provi loans. This hour will fill your heart with laughter and your eyes with tears. How to be a Bad Girl, a captivating cabaret act of original songs performed on piano, is as dirty as the flyers promise — but with unexpected sweetness and poignancy. With a cheeky punch, Chap charms even the politest of Edinburgh audiences to erupt into cheers and to sing along.
Her songs are rich in variety, spanning themes of heartbreak, longing, anger, and political frustration, each its own storm of passion and humour. Among the best free shows at the fringe all month. He makes that clear from the get-go: The Harry Potter movie actor, and co-writer of The Sketch Show with Ronni Ancona and others, moved to LA eight years ago, so is able to weave in personal bits about his home life, his rescue dog, and his wedding in Vegas before he gets to the bone-crunching details of his crash.
As the show goes on, the laughs quieten for his decent material, as the sucker punch of his real-life disaster kicks in. But he manages to keep a healthy balance of comedy and confession, with a nice few plugs for the NHS and California's progressive policies on medicinal marijuana in there too. A matter-of-fact look at how this unstarry comic nearly checked out, but ended up accidentally bumping up his celebrity profile on IMDb instead.
Janey introduces herself as more like a nosy cleaner than a performer prior to launching into a no-nonsense hour of laughter that appealed to everyone and the laughs flowed loud and proud as She shoots from the lip, says what she thinks and nobody and nothing is sacrosanct. The show covers a few of her greatest hits from over the years, and boy does she have a back catalogue to draw from, but there is quite a bit of new stuff too. She gets a lot of abuse on social media but it takes more than that to worry her.
With a hard upbringing and early teenage life she has developed a thick skin. The hour flew by and I am certain was enjoyed by everyone. Candid Cafe Self-loathing, heartbreak and frequent punchlines. Will Mars has had a terrible year and it shows.
- !
- Women With Intellectual Disabilities: Finding a Place in the World: Finding a Place on the World!
- Bar Guide Listings A-Z - Willamette Week.
- !
- ?
- Cahiers numéro 14 (Littérature Française) (French Edition).
- Speed Reading In Only One Hour?
He ambles on stage, glares at the room with his sad eyes and asks us not to clap. He's not earned any applause yet. This isn't a gimmick: Fortunately, it just happens to also be a tightly-focused hour of comedy. The heartbreak and redemption narrative will win Mars no points for originality, but this is a show he can be pleased with. Mars fell in love last year in Edinburgh, but was dumped in a quite brutal manner. Losing 'the one' has forced him to look in the mirror, considering how his life has panned out.
He tells his story with an earnest desperation and, while we obviously only get one side of the story, it's savage nonetheless. On paper it sounds miserable, but Mars crams a lot of smart gags into his hour. I'm not on board with all of it sarcastically bemoaning his straightness as the reason for his not hitting the big time jars with the reflective tone but it's an enjoyably cathartic performance nonetheless. This year's Fringe show from Sarah Callaghan is about wanting to be in a gang.
She desperately wants to fit in, to feel like she's got a family, to get respect and, if possible, a slot on mainstream telly, please. But watching lots of her jokes fall flat, it seems like she needs to pick a team rather a gang. One part of her tries to be on the chummy, mainstream comedy club team, with her banter about geezer mates in London affectionately pretend-bumming her in front of their annoyed girlfriends, and the other part seems to be searing with rage at a spoken-word night, reciting angry, bleak poems about her young, working-class disillusionment.
Although she's been grafting hard at the comedy coalface for eight years now, Callaghan seems shy to reveal her recent attempts to write poetry, but that's the bit that seems most honest and interesting. She feels invisible because of her lack of posh credentials, but it might be nothing to do with that. Her fame-hungry, over-confident swagger and weak gags don't feel like the things that are going to set her apart, but the undertow of pent-up fury at politicians that couldn't give a monkeys, and her cynical insights after growing up in a broken home might be.
Ever the struggling comedian, he reckons that after five consecutive Edinburgh show, his creative tank had run dry when it came to writing his sixth. Yet this impassioned, urgent broadside on the state of both the nation and his own life is fizzing with ideas, intensity and bloody great jokes.
While he starts from familiar set-ups, such as feeling he lacks the maturity, stability and achievement he should have at 30 and mulling a future with a partner he loves, he spins them off in insightful directions. One core idea is that society is divided between the forward-looking, who eagerly consume each quantum leap in technology, and the backwards-looking reactionaries, nostalgic for an ideal that never really exist. With that in mind, what follows is probably not representative of most nights for the Not So Late Show, but nevertheless should persuade you to go. To set the scene: Consequently, getting any kind of an atmosphere going is a challenge with a full crowd.
Unfortunately, Sunday evening was not a full crowd. Featuring guests such as Freddy Mercury and the Ferrero Rocher man, the level of inventiveness required to reinvent your whole script every few days is deeply impressive. Nevertheless, Ross and Josh play off each other fluently, and actually managed to pull off a damn good gig. The guest spots are funny, their choice of guest comedian played well, and their audience interaction was fluent. This style of kamikaze comedy shows nerves of steel.
Dolphins, biscuits, and bottle openers are the main focus. In the second half things get more interesting. As well as adding sharp points to an impressive number of seemingly pointless first act jokes and lines, Falafel makes various moves to deconstruct and expand his performance. At another point, Falafel allows the projector screen he has been using as a subtle aid to take over the show, and suddenly the audience find themselves in conversation with a friendly Indian shopkeeper.
There are silly childish moments in the show, and there are wiser adult moments. Carl Donnelly opens the show by playing a little game with The Counting House lighting. A full range of colours are on offer, and he lets the audience pick the one that suits them. Bold, bright red is too weird, and blue is too depressing, so the audience settle on a comforting orange hue.
Instead there are anecdotes, observations, and a little social commentary, amusingly and sometimes cheekily delivered. Class pops up quite a lot. Class links up with race: These are not shocking revelations, but Donnelly riffs on them well enough to get plenty of laughs. Throughout the whole show, Donnelly comes across as a kind and reasonable man, consciously choosing to host a lower-key show than usual. A Kealy's Heel A funny hour of disjointed standup. Mostly, though, he tackles Brexit, and does so with aplomb, taking on common truths about our national, erm, conversation and providing genuinely new perspective.
But even a three-minute pop song needs shape, form and weight, whereas often this feels like: Is it a metaphor for an interminable Brexit? This is funny, but not a masterpiece. The premise is ludicrous: So another day may bring another, very different show. D'you know how many government satellites are watching any citizen at any moment? Do you know how many religious relics are kept at The Pentagon? You see a pattern emerging here, man? Man, I'm seeing patterns all over the place! Get that smoke out of my face!
I wanted to see what you were made of. Angrily What it look like I'm made of? That's why I like you. When I'm gone, everyone's gonna remember my name That was my homie Fucking midget deserved it, eh. Little asshole tried to bang your sister. Zero in the radio: No, no, I masturbate quite often, if that's what you're implying Staying in Venturas — it used to be a patch of desert, then it was a mob town.
Now, it is the corporate headquarters of America. Richard explains from the streets. It used to be a patch of desert, then it was a mob town. Back to you in the studio. Don't worry girl, the Lord's army will come to our aid, just keep undressing! He practically turned the Families 'round all by himself.
Hey, excuso me, yo soy El Grando Smokio, and I want that grass. Now, that ain't nice. Coughio up el weedo, before I blow your brains out all over the patio Cholo: Hey, fuck your mama, asshole! Does the Pope shit in the woods? I keep telling you, I don't know, holmes. Where His Holiness does his business is his business. I never made love to my mother. Like it says in the book We are both blessed and cursed. I have a confession to make. Brawk, I never fucked over anyone in my life who didn't have it coming!
Who the fuck is Berkley?! I'm an emotionally abused orphan! Can't I get in on any of these groups hugs? No, you stupid bitch! If you're getting chased by a ghetto bird police chopper , one of the gunners may shout this. The other gunner tells him to shut up, acutely embarrassed.
This place won't prompt westsiders to find their way to the backside of the volcano—Tanuki covers that base—but it's a good addition to the neighborhood, and worth a try before catching a movie across the street. The desserts and cocktails are nothing special, however. This fantastically ramshackle tavern has mastered the recipe for a perfect dive bar. The ingredients are simple: This is a joint that lets the drunken soul run amuck, with colored chalk handy for scrawling inspired messages on the wallboards and rafters our favorite reading: Given its outsized reputation among Oregon saloon lore over seven decades of operation, infrequent visitors to Multnomah Village, Southwest Portland's lone civilized stretch, always forget a central tenet of Renner's Grill: The bar is teensy.
A decent birthday party could overfill the Suburban Room, Renner's elevated lounge-within-a-lounge, not to mention disturb the early evening array of well-turned-out couples finishing their dinner, just-off-work locals starting their drunk and the still-imposing pensioners staring down the Blazers game. But the interiors are less cramped than finely proportioned, and there's an easy bonhomie across age and collar that has all but vanished in Portland proper.
The generous pours and cozy environs help, of course, but sometimes it takes a village. Contrary to popular belief, Roadside Attraction was never a Chinese restaurant. You could be easily fooled, though, by the crimson walls and the serpentine golden dragons framing the arch into the back poolroom. Then again, other curios recall a tiki lounge, summer camp or your Burner cousin's overgrown backyard, so you'd also be forgiven for assigning this inner-Southeast pub a different ancestry entirely.
It's a place where all Portlanders must land at some point, though it's disproportionately patronized by the sartorially adventurous: On a recent evening, I spotted several Utilikilts, a woman in a sequined Mrs. Claus getup and a chap going shirtless underneath a fur-trimmed vest. If only all sideshows were so rewarding.
Jukebox, pool, piano, patio with bonfire, endlessly fascinating knickknacks and creatively dressed patrons. With its lack of signage, vast patio and occasionally hipper-than-thou bartenders, Rontoms has long been a bastion of low-key swank. But in the last year, its free Sunday Sessions—which feature newer or lesser-known local bands—have made the airy yet intimate bar even more of a destination.
In the winter, acts play in the sunken indoor pit, surrounded by comfortable, low-slung couches, and in the summer they take to the sprawling back deck, which also boasts a fireplace and pingpong table. The menu tends toward comfort food think fondue and Swedish meatballs and the drink menu is standard, but while sipping a glass of Oregon pinot on an oh-so-long summer night, there's scarcely a better place to be. Live music, pingpong, fireplace, patio. The bar's dark-marbled rock looks to have been cracked and hardened by first magma, then cooling river.
The liquor selection is even more impressive than the room—oft-neglected rum sports a meticulous selection including Zaya, Appleton Estate, Neisson, DonQ and Mount Gay Black—but rarely has such imposing opulence been put to such pedestrian, if eminently tasteful, purpose. Food specials and select drink specials 3: True love apparently can tame the most savage man—or bar, as the case may be.
Onetime biker-rowdy, obscene-minded Roscoe's has been wizened into an old pussycat by its one true and abiding passion: Plinys both Younger and Elder pass through the fast-rotating taps, as do sours both local and Belgian. And while the house menu's Cajun, you can get sushi from neighboring Miyamoto delivered to your barstool. The bar even offers sushi-beer pairing advice. One thing, however, that remains wild there is hair, both on the patrons' faces and in the scruff of their loose-running dogs.
More than the new bougie builds, the bar stands as emblem to a gentler Montavilla that nonetheless still bears the scars of its roadhouse past in both chipped red brick and the occasional live rock show. Sports TV, pool, live music. As the rest of the city blossomed into a food and brewing mecca, Portland's most affluent quadrant became depressingly irrelevant during the last decade.
For Southwest Portlanders, finding a decent bite means at least a five-mile trip, often across the river. Fortunately, Sasquatch Brewing is one of the first steps in rectifying that malaise. Sunk off Capitol Highway on Hillsdale's west end, Sasquatch serves up an impressive array of in-house brews, guest taps and ciders. The food is even better, with seasonal burgers among the best I've had and a "small plate" of fried chicken and fingerling potatoes that is definitely not small.
The space, while decked in warm woods and tasteful Portland nostalgia, is a bit cramped when it's too cold for the patio, but that's nitpicking. Here's hoping Sasquatch is around for a while and helps lead a renaissance of these forgotten hills. Beer, wine and food specials pm and 9pm-close daily.
Though its name means "savage" in French, absolutely nothing at Sauvage falls below perfectly refined, except maybe the taxidermied goose perched imposingly on a stack of wine barrels near the bar. Hardly identifiable from the street, the entry is a chalkboard wall simply scrawled with " Sauvage" and a veiled door. Once one enters the secret wine nook, it's as pretentious as the welcome suggests: Hanging glass orbs and candles make the mahogany tables glow, a mixture of random fine art and wine barrels stack the walls, and the owners prattle off varietals with tongue-twisting dexterity.
This is oenogeek turf and don't forget it, says the large glass door leading to Sauvage's on-site winery, Fausse Piste. And where Chicago disallows any and all happy hours, Savoy has two: But if the geography is confused, the mood is warm. And if there's one thing the Midwest is good for, it's forgiveness. And if there's one thing the French are good for, it's being forgiven. If you've ever wondered what it's like to sip fancy drinks in a tiny old library, this is the closest you may ever come.
Nestled in a historic Victorian-era hall, this classy establishment has come a long way since its frat-house origins of The lounge offers more than 40 vintage cocktails on the menu alongside a rotating selection of draft beers and wines. Food options are tasty, straightforward and available all night. Contrary to the cozy, candlelit feel of weekdays, though, things are sure to get loud and happenin' during ballroom events next door.
When you enter Sellwood Public House, you are greeted with a flight of stairs, which doesn't seem a great start. At the top of those stairs are two locked doors that look like they house yoga studios for septuagenarians. To the right is a short hall, and that hall is painted on both sides like the view from the middle of the Sellwood Bridge. This may sound lame, but I assure you it is not. And then you're in the Sellwood Public House, a charmingly cozy pub up off the quiet end of 13th Avenue.
The service is outstanding especially at the bar , the food is wide-ranging and well made, and there's a quality tap and liquor selection. The clientele ranges in age from mids to late 30s and is composed of regular, everyday Portlanders, the sort that don't see the city as a giant performance art piece though they're cool, too. The bar is actually divided in half, with the non-bar side playing host to games pool, darts and the like and live music, and the bar half is for talking and watching the game. Live music, pool, darts, pingpong, sports TV. The shambling mini mead hall hastily decorated for Christmases past and shoved underneath a private residence along a disused swath of lesser Sandy Boulevard never looked anything less than bizarre, but the Slammer's core clientele of square-jawed stalwarts with uncomplicated wardrobes Eagles jacket shelved for Slammer Softball jersey at the first flush of spring once typified the East Side Industrial District.
But from Skee-Ball to the giddy negation of propriety, it's always been more funhouse than frat house. The bartenders don't make good cocktails—they make stiff cocktails less so if you're an ass, more so if you deserve a lesson. Even after cocktail mecca Rum Club dropped anchor the other side of the road, a staff that refuses credit card purchases for their own convenience didn't exactly rush to master mixology. The 30 feet between doors might as well be worlds apart, separating what Portland was from all it's trying so desperately to become.
The mood remains cordial, though Lord help the Rum Club should they ever field a softball team. Well discounts and food specials pm daily, pm. Throughout a vibrant but never cluttered '70s interior, the high art of low culture has been lovingly assembled to breathtaking effect utterly shorn of irony or, strange as this may sound, excess.
From the animatronic band figures above the jukebox to the cabinetmaking flourishes around the fuse box, form at Sloan's follows function. Why don't more cocktail tables blink around the sides? Why aren't all lounge ceilings mirrored? The blend of fashion-forward cocktails with time-swept food our visit, the food special was beef stroganoff; the drink special, house-infused cucumber gin reflects a clientele with both neighborhood holdovers and gay and lesbian transplants.
It's the sort of hard-earned integration of clientele easily spoiled by nightlife tourists, but Sloan's schedule and locale just far enough from several beaten paths have thus far prevented the wholesale invasion. There's no better way to avoid weekenders than to avoid weekends. Pool, trivia nights, DJ nights, video poker. Sometimes you just need a bartender who will tell you what to do. When I edged up to the bar in this handsome but sparsely adorned space early on a Saturday evening, uncertain of what I wanted but sorely in need of a stiff drink, the barkeep insisted that I ditch the cocktail menu which, for the record, looked pretty solid and instead whipped me up a ballsy tequila concoction.
It was tart, smoky, face-contortingly strong, and exactly what I needed. That's Slow Bar for you: Originally intended to be a "bartender's bar," they've got a rock-star attitude and the chops to back it up. And she hadn't even seen the square-dancing nights or the KJ who accompanies most songs with saxophone even if they do not traditionally have saxophone parts or the ladies' night. Come to think of it, I haven't seen the ladies' night, but I trust that it is amazing, because it is advertised on the biggest, reddest sign in town.
And also because everything here is miraculous. Live music, Pac games, dance nights, karaoke with live saxophone, finding God. Visiting the Star Bar isn't as much a social event as an anthropological one. Alice Cooper and Gene Simmons ogle you from framed prints as you order at the bar, and if you're not dressed in black leather and chains, there's a good chance you'll feel a little out of place. But after a few minutes, you realize that the bar has comfortable couches, dozens of hilarious black velvet paintings, a decent food and cocktail menu, and moneyed refugees from Dig a Pony monopolizing the photo booth.
Star Bar remains true to the spirit of the authentically gritty dive in only one important way: Every time the bathroom door opens, it pervades the bar with an acidic urine stench strong enough to make a construction worker gag. Sit as far away from the back as you can.
Live music, outdoor seating, juke, pinball, photo booth. Housed in the year-old brown stucco building previously occupied by Thai restaurant Siam Society, the sports pub Station takes its name from the original tenant, the Northwestern Electric Co. A large, arched doorway leads into a room outfitted with cathedral windows, a massive projection screen and a mirrored bar whose top shelf must be accessed by ladder. It's like they shoved an upscale man cave inside an old community playhouse. As incongruous as the mix of faded industrialism and nouveau-westside chic comes across, though, it makes for an appealingly strange atmosphere to watch a Ducks game.
Something beyond ambiance draws the motley assemblage of daytime patrons adventurous PSU students, yellow-eyed office cubicle refugees, guests of an adjoining motel primarily chosen for proximity to VA and OHSU hospitals to pass through the throng of Oregon Lottery regulars and approach the surprisingly spacious lounge for serviceable food, passingly stiff drinks and a thriving karaoke scene.
While devoted fans may credit the mayhem cultivated by KJ Dick, there's a freedom afforded by bars that allow the full plunge. TV, karaoke, video poker, pool. The Sweet Hereafter is, in its own way, an afterlife for the old-school bar. It has no phone and no website, but this is less low-tech apathy than a post-everything abnegation of the world.
The food is likewise post-meat and post-dairy post-gluten should be next , and the garage-doored patio—at least the part that isn't a strange gravel pit best suited for a backyard tofurky grill—is emphatically post-smoking. But it's not a eulogy we're writing, because the bar is indeed lively. Because of its pedigree as an offshoot of Bye And Bye, it has garnered an inexplicable reputation as a hipster bar that is nonetheless not borne out by the clientele.
The place is downright homey and crowded with personable people who have actual jobs until, suddenly, it isn't: At about 11 pm any night but Saturday, the happily crowded bar collectively checks its watch and drinks up. It's kind of amazing. Also, "vegan bar" or no, no one I know intentionally eats food here. Portland, it seems, is post-vegan. Yeah, they put a bird on it. But that doesn't stop the Swift Lounge from being a downright pleasant place for a liquor-fueled lark. Some of the drinks skew too sweet, but the Stoned Finch, a combo of cucumber-infused vodka, basil, mint, cucumber and elderflower syrup hits the right note without being saccharine.
DJs, pinball, Jenga , sidewalk tables. The bar's tiny room consists of a one-plank bar, a pair of communal tables and a chocolate Lab half asleep near the record players as if music were a warm fire. The bar also stocks dry, oaky ciders and keeps a sour beer perennially on tap. Still, the Gasthaus architecture and spare wood framing gives the bar a self-contained, Teutonic distance. You don't feel at home there so much as you feel like you've been treated to unexpected hospitality in an obscure land, somewhere high in the mountains of Tabor.
Rotating specials pm nightly. DJs, playing with the dog. Tanuki is a strange little world. Known for its food but appointed as a bar, chef-owner Janis Martin's Montavilla izakaya is a dim, nearly unmarked space frequented mostly by a small, self-selecting group of adventurous eaters and service-industry pros.
This will be doubly so now that Tanuki is starkly limiting food seating to maintain its licensing status as a sake joint. Germain elderflower liqueur, rhubarb bitters and cucumber served ice cold in a cedar masu square, wooden drinking cup. Huge array of cheap-ass food or drink pm nightly. Japanese tentacle porn, horrorsploitation, twisted children's fare, pinball.
At the crest of the Alameda Ridge sits Portland's indie-rock garden party, its semi-famous denizens undiminished by age, mortgages or the various infused gins they've ingested. The DJ turntable is located one elbow's length away from the bar, and sensitive nonsmokers will never be able to escape the sensation that Joe Camel is parked outside the open garage door.
But no whining in Eden, please. As with so much of the new Portland, no one is ever going to notice that this is merely an extra-wide sidewalk, some ashtrays and some artfully scattered rocks: It is heaven because we are here. Though very much the next step in the Mississippi neighborhood's relentless gentrification, Uchu maintains some of that neighborhood's art-damaged edge, as opposed to the wholesale bourgeoisie of the flower-in-tundra Williams-Vancouver restaurant colony: And the happy-hour menu is killer. Many food and drink deals all day Monday-Wednesday, pm and 9 pm-close Thursday-Saturday, pm Sunday.
I dunno, man, it's hard to explain. If you ride, you get it. But if you've never shown up to work late and dripping, your teeth tingly from some potholed street, you won't understand. It's a cavernous bicycle shop with beer on tap, a stage and a makeshift museum.
Sitting at the bar fashioned from scrappy wood, admiring the collection of old mountain bikes and drinking a can of Anderson Valley—shit, it's cool. If you ride, you get why the owners moved this shop up from San Diego. The plan to serve pour-over coffee and tamales makes sense, too. If not, this ain't your scene. Watching bike repair, occasional movies and concerts. See Bar of the Year Feature. Montavilla's Vintage cocktail lounge is a great place to do the whole absinthe thing.
On one hand, this upscale cocktail bar—a deep, narrow nook along Stark Street's canopied sidewalks—has all the appropriate accoutrements, from the fountain to spoon. On the other hand, this dark neighborhood bar is not so fashionable that anyone will look at you cross-eyed for indulging in the pleasant little ritual a few years past the height of the trend. On a recent episode of Portlandia , the Waypost acted as visual shorthand for the kind of establishment that harbors the artistically challenged.
That's unfair, but not wholly inaccurate. At night, the small Boise-Eliot cafe-cum-tavern hosts all manner of events, from poetry readings to fiddle jams to "dinosaur tarot" readings. Draped in thrift-store chic, the place resembles a coffee shop more than a bar and actually acts as such during the day—which, ironically, is the best time to stop in for a cocktail, when there's no interpretive dance showcase scheduled and you can peacefully enjoy a cucumber-infused vodka cranberry on the patio, naturally situated next to a community garden.
Live music, lectures, karaoke, trivia, pinball. Waiting is an intrinsic part of Portland life, whether for brunch or ice cream. Either way, it was only a matter of time before local restaurateurs opened spin-off establishments where they can send waiting customers. Originally meant to be a private dining room, the converted storage shed resembles a rustic hospital lobby, with firewood and Edison lamps lining the walls, and serves as a staging area for patrons who have 90 minutes to kill before going H.
It's a bit hidden away to stand on its own as a bar, but that doesn't mean the drinks are an afterthought.
Tropes in this game:
White Owl Social Club. No membership is required to stop in for a drink, but a taste for Metallica and local liquor helps. Essentially a large-scale spin-off of the studded and shredded Sizzle Pie late-night pizzeria, the White Owl occupies a large space in industrial inner Southeast. There aren't any neighbors to disturb, which is good because the music is loud and the crowd favors nicotine and leather. But a massive patio packed with picnic tables, projectors and an old pickup truck hauling a few kegs shows promise come summer.
Food specials 11 pm-1 am. Patio, live music, karaoke. The World Famous Kenton Club. The World Famous Kenton Club bills itself as music, booze and regrets. Our thumping eardrums and hangovers couldn't agree more. NoPo's most iconic dive bar—serving up generous pours of liquor and holding live shows most nights of the week—has been around since Dubbed "world famous" after the bar had a cameo in a Raquel Welch roller-derby flick, today it's definitely the go-to spot for the neighborhood.
Parking our car, we saw a twentysomething leave her apartment across the street and plant herself on a bar stool for the rest of the night. It's been 66 years, and Kenton Club's put down roots as a raucous, dark, dirty-in-the-best-way-possible dive—and that shit's timeless.
Live music, pool, pinball, darts, trivia, TV, patio. Share on Google Plus. By WW Culture Staff. About WW Culture Staff.