The man to beat at this year’s Edinburgh is Dan Antopolski, writes Ben Clover, such is the flair and assurance of his show, Silent But Deadly. The man to beat so far, Edinburgh 2009’s Roger Federer.No one else I’ve yet seen has the same flair and assurance. Antopolski has a rock-solid hour with punchlines galore.(…)

Sixty minutes of comedy is beyond Tom Deacon at the moment, but he has time on his side, writes Ben Clover. Well, he’s affable enough but Tom Deacon needs more and better jokes. Harsh perhaps but this young act has plenty of time yet to develop them and he is popular on the London circuit.(…)

An hour with Alun Cochrane is an unpretentious joy, full of sublime phrasing and flights of fancy, writes Paul Fleckney. There is barely a whiff of ‘Edinburgh show’ about Alun Cochrane’s Daydreamer. Whereas most comics construct a bespoke hour of material around a specific theme, this is more like a top-quality 60-minute circuit gig. It’s(…)

Richard Herring’s already infamous Hitler Moustache show is intended to rally as much as entertain, and he admirably achieves both, writes Paul Fleckney. Tim Key has funny bones, writes Ben Clover, as his oddball show Slutcracker shows in abundance. All I knew about Tim Key before going to the Pleasance was that he did short,(…)

Ben Clover says some of the young comics who make up The Lunchtime Club will turn into good comics, one of them is already there. 12.30pm is the school lunch hour, an apt time for comedy from five comics only fairly recently out of short trousers. And like any school gang, the quintet taking the(…)