MERV's  FRIDAY  21st  SHOW
Where: Venue 17
When: 1.00pm - 2.30pm
Price: £11.00 / £10.00 concs

THEATRE

By Adam Long (co-founder of The Reduced Shakespeare Company), Dickens Abridged is a high-speed comic journey through Dickens' greatest hits, including Oliver Twist, Great Expectations (complete with flaming bride), David Copperfield, Bleak House in less than 60 seconds, A Tale of Two Cities featuring a fully functioning guillotine, Nicholas Nickleby, Old Curiosity Shop, and, of course ... A Christmas Carol. A singing, dancing love letter to the life and works of the great man, Dickens Abridged is unlike any Dickens-based show you've ever seen before.

COMEDY

Tania Edwards: Electrifying

This is the hotly anticipated and hilarious new show from Tania Edwards; stand up comedian (BBC1, Radio 4), and writer (Mock the Week, BBC2, Stand Up For The Week, Channel 4). Tania was a finalist in the Hackney Empire, Amused Moose, Leicester Square, Latitude, and Funny Women competitions. 'Akin to a female Simon Evans... a bit posh and something of a sociopath... fantastically seamy side to the material... also great with audience banter... sublime... brilliant' (Chortle.co.uk). 'Very punchy stand up and her banter with the audience is incredibly quick' (ThreeWeeks). 'Star of the future' (SW Magazine).

THEATRE

Jack Rooke: Good Grief

With a coffin full of sympathy snacks, Jack Rooke and his 85-year old nan invite you to their weird and wonderful world of bereavement. Blending comedy, film and storytelling, Rooke's debut hour examines how we treat bereaved people, and challenges proposed 2016 welfare cuts for grieving families in Britain. Using humour to break down the awkwardness of discussing death, Good Grief aims to celebrate lost loved ones and finding happiness after tragedy. 'Rooke's anecdotes are hilarious' (BroadwayBaby.com).

THEATRE

If I Were Me

It’s spring. The world is blossoming. Phillip’s potted daffodil is dying. A copywriter at an advertising agency, fading into the background of a pale office wall, he rearranges words until they work. But life isn't so easily edited. Phillip doesn't want to be Phillip. But what if he never really has been? What if Phillip is yet to become Phillip? And then there’s Person, who isn’t anybody... yet. Previous IdeasTap Underbelly Award winners Antler return to Edinburgh with If I Were Me, a playfully surreal portrayal of the performance of identity.

THEATRE

Lou Conran: Small Medium at Large

Lou Conran talks to dead people (and live ones too if pushed). Brought up with a clairvoyant mother, who goes to a real life Hogwarts, she hasn't got much choice. In her new show, Lou talks about finding dead bodies, phantom ukuleles and giving readings via the medium of food (a subject close to her heart). Who wouldn't want their granddad brought through symbolically in the form of a trifle? Lou reluctantly discusses her own real experiences with the other side. Comedy clairvoyance in a caravan, why wouldn't you go? ‘Naturally funny’ (Sarah Millican).

COMEDY

Jo Caulfield: Awkward Conversations

Brand new show. Award-winning comedian recounts hysterical arguments and embarrassing misunderstandings. Answers she wishes she’d given and things she wishes she’d never said! As featured on Mock the Week, Fighting Talk, and Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow. ‘Jokes and observations so well crafted she makes the whole endeavour seem effortless’ ***** (SGFringe.com). ‘One of the most intelligent comedians on the circuit. Not only are her jokes well sculpted, but she manages to keep surprising the audience with further punchlines’ ****(BroadwayBaby.com). ‘Incapable of doing a bad show’ **** (Scotsman).

MUSIC/COMEDY

Diane Chorley: Duchess of Canvey

Join Diane, former owner of 80s Essex nightclub The Flick, and her band, The Buffet, for a showbiz, late-night musical spectacular, with comic tales of her troubled and infamous past. 'Diane Chorley, fronting a tight indie pop band whilst recounting her 80s fall from grace, was the most fun I had in a comedy show this Summer' (Stewart Lee). 'The darkest, driest, most hilarious ex-con I've ever met. I love Diane Chorley' (Eva Wiseman, Observer).

HOST

MERVYN STUTTER

“Mervyn Stutter is very very good as compere of this chat show; for to make such a showcase work requires skill, talent and quick reactions. Stutter works the crowd like the showman he is. Excellent…really, really good.”
The Observer

Adam Long's Dickens Abridged

“Mervyn Stutter is very very good as compere of this chat show; for to make such a showcase work requires skill, talent and quick reactions. Stutter works the crowd like the showman he is. Excellent…really, really good.”
The Observer