Brian Logan
AD of Camden People’s Theatre, Guardian comedy person, CPFC/DUFC fan, dad - not always in that order.
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Articles by Brian Logan
Derren Brown turns into Nostradamus – and I predict you’ll submit to one gasp-inducing stunt after another
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Standup Jon Richardson on turning his dark teenage diaries into a tearjerking memoir: ‘I couldn’t sugarcoat those years’
It begins on Christmas Day, 1996: “It’s been a lovely day … I realised how much I love my family.” It ends three years later: “I’m lying on the floor in floods of tears and all I want to do is die.” Say what you like about adolescence but it is nothing if not an emotional tumult.
Standup Jon Richardson on turning his dark teenage diaries into a tearjerking memoir: ‘I couldn’t sugarcoat those years’
‘I have accumulated a horrific amount of paraphernalia from my own back story’ … Jon Richardson now and during his younger years. Composite: Ray Burmiston; Sphere It begins on Christmas Day, 1996: “It’s been a lovely day … I realised how much I love my family.” It ends three years later: “I’m lying on the floor in floods of tears and all I want to do is die.” Say what you like about adolescence but it is nothing if not an emotional tumult.
Kevin Bridges review – steamroller standup is a joy but what’s with the £10 cloakroom charge?
Brilliantly blunt … Kevin Bridges. Photograph: Andy Hollingworth Is there a better no-frills standup at work today than Kevin Bridges? You’d struggle to find a more unfussily funny demonstration of the art form’s traditional virtues than at the Glaswegian’s new touring set.
‘I didn’t know I was a screamer. Turns out I am’ – the spooky secrets of Last One Laughing: Halloween
Paranormal obsessive … Daisy May Cooper on Last One Laughing Halloween Photograph: Prime Video What could be more disorientating for a comedian than not being able to laugh – for nine hours! – nor elicit laughter from anyone else in the room? I’ll tell you. Try all of the above on a sunny summer weekend while pretending it’s Halloween.
‘I didn’t know I was a screamer. Turns out I am’ – the spooky secrets of Last One Laughing: Halloween Original
What could be more disorientating for a comedian than not being able to laugh – for nine hours! – nor elicit laughter from anyone else in the room? I'll tell you. Try all of the above on a sunny summer weekend while pretending it's Halloween. Then force the comics to return to the scene of what one of their number, Phil Wang, calls "a cross between a gameshow and a psychological experiment", and relive the whole ordeal for a man from the Guardian.
Laudato Si' Action Plan
Led by Deacon Brian Logan, the Archdiocesan Coordinator of Care for Creation, the Archdiocese of Dubuque has implemented the Laudato Si' Action Plan (LSAP) in response to the call of our faith in caring for our common home.
What’s funny, what’s offensive? And are Mitchell and Webb comedy villains now?
David Mitchell and Robert Webb on stage during Amnesty International’s Secret Policeman’s Ball at the Royal Albert Hall, London, October 2008. Photograph: Ian West/PA Wire/PA Photos “Are we the baddies?”, asked the comedy double act Mitchell and Webb in their most famous sketch, in which two uniformed SS officers look one another up and down and arrive at that inescapable conclusion.
‘Finally, a victory for the middle-aged white man!’ Chris Cantrill on winning the Edinburgh comedy award
For the last month, Chris Cantrill has been performing his fringe show Rewilding daily in a lunchtime slot. And yet, when we plan to speak about his victory in the Edinburgh comedy awards, the interview is arranged – on the festival’s penultimate day – for lunchtime. Can he really have won the fringe’s major prize, and – hell of a mic drop, this – immediately sacked off his last two shows? “I couldn’t be happier not to be at the festival today,” he says, on video call from his Northumberland home.
Fourth time lucky as Chris Cantrill’s spoof whodunnit wins Edinburgh comedy award 2026
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Fourth time lucky as Chris Cantrill’s spoof whodunnit wins Edinburgh comedy award 2026
Palpable mainstream potential … Chris Cantrill.Photograph: Jack Kirby The annual Edinburgh comedy award has been won by the standup Chris Cantrill, two years after his comedy partner Amy Gledhill – in the raucous northern double act The Delightful Sausage – won the same prize.
Spencer Jones: Dogs review – barking comic sniffs out community through canines
Updated Fri, August 28, 2026 at 7:00 PM UTC The innocent idealism of nonsense … Spencer Jones.Photograph: PR First came Ricky Gervais’s cynical cats; now here are Spencer Jones’s optimistic Dogs. One was tawdry, the other couldn’t be sweeter, as the prop-comic delivers this hymn to the canine-human relationship.
Li Jin Hao: Falling from a Moon review – comedy’s Mr Nostalgia is now the man of the moment
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Tom Towelling Teaches You to Knit review – quirky yarns and a pop quiz in maths
Tom Towelling Teaches You to Knit review – quirky yarns and a pop quiz in maths Fri, August 28, 2026 at 3:15 p.m. UTC Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Gently cocooning … Tom TowellingPhotograph: PR The route from the classroom to the comedy stage is well travelled, and ex-maths teacher Tom Towelling makes it the thread of his show here, conducting his audience like so many recalcitrant pupils under his charge.
Li Jin Hao: Falling from a Moon review – comedy’s Mr Nostalgia is now the man of the moment
Li Jin Hao: Falling from a Moon review – comedy’s Mr Nostalgia is now the man of the moment Fri, August 28, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. UTC Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.
Max Olesker: Making the Cut review – up close and personal account of comic’s religious conversion
'I would do anything for love," Meat Loaf sang, "but I won't do that." Max Olesker would, if his solo show Making the Cut – based on his memoir – is any guide. It recounts the comic and writer's conversion from liberal to Orthodox Judaism, a process required so he can marry his sweetheart – but which, in the meantime, forbids him from so much as touching her for years on end, and forbids much else besides. Secularists may be left reeling.
Adam Riches: The Captain review – the extraordinary glory of a ‘half man, half fish’ Victorian hero
'Who are these people that do what [the rest of us] cannot?" Adam Riches' solo play The Captain teases at the daredevil spirit, incarnate here in Capt Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the Channel unaided. Riches plays Fred Beckwith, a swimming coach who trains the young Webb for his tilt at greatness. The show takes the form of a lecture-cum-eulogy to the "half man, half fish" Webb, whose body lies under a shroud on a table in the apt surroundings of Summerhall's Anatomy theatre.
Adam Riches: The Captain review – the extraordinary glory of a ‘half man, half fish’ Victorian hero
Updated Wed, August 26, 2026 at 8:01 AM UTC Deep dive … Adam Riches: The Captain.Photograph: Matt Stronge ‘Who are these people that do what [the rest of us] cannot?” Adam Riches’ solo play The Captain teases at the daredevil spirit, incarnate here in Capt Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the Channel unaided. Riches plays Fred Beckwith, a swimming coach who trains the young Webb for his tilt at greatness.
Jess Fuchs: Feral review – a debut with tremendous oomph from a future comedy star
'No hugging, no learning" was the writers' rule on Seinfeld. Jess Fuchs decrees a similar stricture for Feral, in which she will learn nothing about herself whatsoever.
Jess Fuchs: Feral review – a debut with tremendous oomph from a future comedy star
‘No hugging, no learning” was the writers’ rule on Seinfeld. Jess Fuchs decrees a similar stricture for Feral, in which she will learn nothing about herself whatsoever.
Kemah Bob: Love Child review – Miss Fortunate’s follow-up is a superbly playful origin story
Updated Tue, 25 August 2026 at 3:20 pm UTC Thinking aloud … Kemah Bob.Photograph: Paul Gilbey A standup’s debut show usually tells us who they are, then with their follow-up, they branch out. Kemah Bob has done things the other way around.
Kemah Bob: Love Child review – Miss Fortunate’s follow-up is a superbly playful origin story
A standup's debut show usually tells us who they are, then with their follow-up, they branch out. Kemah Bob has done things the other way around. After 2024's Miss Fortunate, a wild shaggy dog story about a disastrous trip to Thailand, she now delivers that delayed "this is me" set, an open-hearted inquiry into how she got here and her origins as the child of a poor black family, the descendants of slavery, in the southern US.
Frankie Thompson: Horrible Things review – a show to make you shudder with laughter
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Frankie Thompson: Horrible Things review – a show to make you shudder with laughter
There are plenty of works-in-progress on the fringe. Frankie Thompson insists (or has the voice of Peppa Pig do so) that her show is a work-in-regress, an expunging of Horrible Things from the deepest recesses of her, and our, recollection.
Frankie Thompson: Horrible Things review – a show to make you shudder with laughter
Updated Mon, August 24, 2026 at 3:43 PM UTC Brooking no nonsense in a polka-dot dress … Frankie Thompson: Horrible Things.Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/the Guardian There are plenty of works-in-progress on the fringe. Frankie Thompson insists (or has the voice of Peppa Pig do so) that her show is a work-in-regress, an expunging of Horrible Things from the deepest recesses of her, and our, recollection.
Those People review – a double act with raw passion and no filter
Fifteen years ago in this room, I remember the thrill of encountering Lizzie and Sarah Daykin’s duo Toby, which complicated the double-act dynamic with highly charged, is-it-real sibling rivalry. I felt the thrills again with this two-hander featuring Lara Ciulli and Riana White, which refracts sketch comedy (and dance, and confessional) through the lens of queer female friendship. Who knows whether Ciulli and White are lifelong besties, housemates, sometimes-almost lovers?
Dan Tiernan: Quartz and all review – a furious comedy show about healing crystals
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Dan Tiernan: Quartz and All review – a furious comedy show about healing crystals
Updated Mon, August 24, 2026 at 4:14 AM UTC Seething … Dan Tiernan in Quartz and All at Monkey Barrel Comedy, Edinburgh.Photograph: PR I’ve seen two prominent comedians on this year’s fringe argue that your belief system is something you choose. Sign of the strange times, or just a way to justify some far-out comedy? Dan Tiernan’s show is certainly an extreme experience, as he discusses his interest – his faith, supposedly – in healing crystals. Rose quartz for calm, black tourmaline for grounding.
Megasquirt: Fully Loaded review – how to combat existential angst? A comedy rave at an ungodly hour
Updated Sun, August 23, 2026 at 7:02 PM UTC Garnished with silliness … Drew Reilly and Ashley Blair in Fully Loaded.Photograph: Alex Brenner ‘How to feel whole in an empty world?” There are many possible answers to that question, and Megasquirt’s late-night comedy rave workshops a good few of them.
A supreme being, the nearly naked show and politics with paws: Edinburgh fringe pick’n’mix
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Updated Sun, August 23, 2026 at 5:01 AM UTC What on earth … Anna Leong Brophy: Born Sexy Yesterday.Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian For new perspective on the strange ways we behave, we all know the thought experiment “if a visitor from space arrived on Earth, what would they think?” In Born Sexy Yesterday, Anna Leong Brophy plays a supreme being implanted into a grown woman’s body to experience life for the first time.
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Elouise Eftos: Aphrodite review – 'Australia’s first attractive comedian' asks if love is real
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Elouise Eftos: Aphrodite review – ‘Australia’s first attractive comedian’ asks if love is real
You can't argue with the opening gambit of Aphrodite: "I've never been in love and I don't think it's real." Consider me grabbed. This is the follow-up to Elouise Eftos's fantastically provocative 2025 debut, Australia's First Attractive Comedian, and it's another intelligent, in-your-face hour about men and women, sex and expectations.
Elouise Eftos: Aphrodite review – ‘Australia’s first attractive comedian’ asks if love is real
You can’t argue with the opening gambit of Aphrodite: “I’ve never been in love and I don’t think it’s real.” Consider me grabbed. This is the follow-up to Elouise Eftos’s fantastically provocative 2025 debut, Australia’s First Attractive Comedian, and it’s another intelligent, in-your-face hour about men and women, sex and expectations.
Salty Brine: How Strange It Is (The Neutral Milk Hotel Show) review – one of today’s most powerful stage voices
Overbrimming … Salty Brine in How Strange It Is (The Neutral Milk Hotel Show). Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian It’s a hell of a swing to make a show paralleling your first love with Anne Frank’s – the more so for that show about her to end on an uplift. But Salty Brine is nothing if not the man for a big swing.
Salty Brine: How strange it is (The Neutral Milk Hotel Show) review – one of today’s most powerful stage voices
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Salty Brine: How Strange It Is (The Neutral Milk Hotel Show) review – one of today’s most powerful stage voices
It's a hell of a swing to make a show paralleling your first love with Anne Frank's – the more so for that show about her to end on an uplift. But Salty Brine is nothing if not the man for a big swing. This most overbrimming of cabaret artists is in town with his Living Record Collection project, which makes shows inspired by, and featuring, the songs from beloved rock and pop albums.
Salty Brine: How Strange It Is (The Neutral Milk Hotel Show) review – one of today’s most powerful stage voices
Updated Fri, August 21, 2026 at 3:44 PM UTC Overbrimming … Salty Brine in How Strange It Is (The Neutral Milk Hotel Show).Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian It’s a hell of a swing to make a show paralleling your first love with Anne Frank’s – the more so for that show about her to end on an uplift. But Salty Brine is nothing if not the man for a big swing.
Crybabies: The Scaring review – chills and laughs abound in twisty tale of demonic possession
Particularly precious puns … Crybabies Ed Jones and James Gault in The Scaring. Photograph: Mihaela Bodlovic Horror pastiche has a proud lineage at this festival – for example Garth Marenghi, and Andrew Doherty’s hit Gay Witch Sex Cult two summers ago.
Crybabies: The Scaring review – chills and laughs abound in twisty tale of demonic possession
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Crybabies: The Scaring review – chills and laughs abound in twisty tale of demonic possession
Updated Thu, 20 August 2026 at 7:01 pm UTC Particularly precious puns … Crybabies Ed Jones and James Gault in The Scaring.Photograph: Mihaela Bodlovic Horror pastiche has a proud lineage at this festival – for example Garth Marenghi, and Andrew Doherty’s hit Gay Witch Sex Cult two summers ago.
Crybabies: The Scaring review – chills and laughs abound in twisty tale of demonic possession
Horror pastiche has a proud lineage at this festival – for example Garth Marenghi, and Andrew Doherty's hit Gay Witch Sex Cult two summers ago. In that company, Crybabies' The Scaring can stand as tall as the demon Haeldrrun towering over its finale: it's another fantastic comic play from the Radio 4 trio of Michael Clarke, James Gault and Ed Jones with chills as well as laughs, and production values rarely seen on the fringe.
Making love with David Magidoff review – instant improv musical based on Fran Healy’s teenage infidelity
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Making Love with David Magidoff review – instant improv musical based on Fran Healy’s teenage infidelity
Updated Thu, 20 August 2026 at 11:08 am UTC ‘A Travis fanboy’ …David Magidoff, right, with special guest Fran Healy in Making Love.Photograph: Lisa Kelley Remerowski/© Lisa Kelley Remerowski/LKR Photo It’s a lovely format for improv: a special guest tells David Magidoff the story of some romantic (mis)adventure from their past, and Magidoff and pals turn it into an extemporised musical.
Making Love with David Magidoff review – instant improv musical based on Fran Healy’s teenage infidelity
'A Travis fanboy' …David Magidoff, right, with special guest Fran Healy in Making Love. Photograph: Lisa Kelley Remerowski/© Lisa Kelley Remerowski/LKR Photo It's a lovely format for improv: a special guest tells David Magidoff the story of some romantic (mis)adventure from their past, and Magidoff and pals turn it into an extemporised musical. Shades of Improbable theatre's tender and funny Lifegame, many moons ago – although Making Love is more knockabout than that.
Larry Dean: Hellbent review – SNL UK star’s cheery riffs on romance and royalty
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‘I’m not Mr Saturday Night’: the highbrow brilliance of Ahir Shah, past winner of comedy’s top prize
‘If you’re encased in lead, how do you get golden?’ … Ahir Shah, whose new show is called Golden. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian Among past winners of the Edinburgh comedy award, few seemed less likely when the starter’s pistol fired than Ahir Shah in 2023. Not because Shah wasn’t a contender: he had been nominated twice before. But that year he arrived on the fringe with a mere work in progress, not even eligible for the award.
Larry Dean: Hellbent review – SNL UK star’s cheery riffs on romance and royalty
Crowd-pleasing … Larry Dean performs Hellbent in Edinburgh. Photograph: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan When SNL UK hit big earlier this year, it made stars of several comics just starting their careers. That was not the case with Larry Dean, who has been peddling his brand of crowd-pleasing Glasgow comedy for well over a decade.
‘I’m not Mr Saturday Night’: the highbrow brilliance of Ahir Shah, past winner of comedy’s top prize
Among past winners of the Edinburgh comedy award, few seemed less likely when the starter’s pistol fired than Ahir Shah in 2023. Not because Shah wasn’t a contender: he had been nominated twice before. But that year he arrived on the fringe with a mere work-in-progress, not even eligible for the award. Shah’s director, the great Adam Brace, had recently died and the comic had just returned to the stage after a break from comedy.
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