Our comedy picks at Edinburgh Fringe this year
The Hollywood star, comic and 11-time Grammy and Tony award-winner contemplates her present and future life, having recently moved to Ireland from the United States — whose president is emphatically not a fan.Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower, 8.45pm, Aug 1-10, £26
The Have I Got News For You star and his talented wife do funny things with help from audience suggestions — with the assistance of a rota of well-known improvisers.Pleasance Courtyard, 3.30pm, Aug 7-17, £18
The affable star of Jonathan Creek and QI returns to muse upon midlife preoccupations such as embarrassing his children and spending more time in the chemist than the gym.Gilded Balloon, 7.15pm, Jul 31-Aug 10 (not 5), £17; preview Jul 30
Fiona Allen, Sally Phillips and Doon Mackichan offer a peek behind the stable door, performing some of their favourite sketches and telling Kirsty Wark about their memories of the cult Channel 4 comedy show. Gilded Balloon at the Museum, 2.45pm, Aug 17-20, £30
The first woman to have been nominated three times for the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, the Glasgow-based Josie Long is back with a new typically joyous show about how to stay defiant and bring up children in a frightening world.Pleasance Dome, 7pm, Aug 1-24 (not 13), £18; previews Jul 30-31; two-for-one Aug 4-5
• Review: The end of Josie Long's Short Cuts
Best known to some for Two Doors Down, the Glasgow-based Kieran Hodgson has been nominated four times for the Edinburgh Comedy Award. In his new show he examines how the world feels about the US, a country he had big dreams about as a child.Pleasance Courtyard, 9.30pm, Aug 1-24 (not 23), £11; previews Jul 30-31; two-for-one Aug 4-5,
This accomplished and charming stand-up runs a bookshop and does some very funny material about it on social media, but that's not what this show is about. He'll be sharing his thoughts about his recent circumcision.Assembly George Square, 5.05pm, Aug 1-24 (not 13), £8; previews Jul 30-31; two-for-one Aug 4-5
Nominated for a 2022 Edinburgh Comedy Award for Is It a Bird? and the star of her own ITV sitcom, Transaction, the charismatic and multitalented Jordan Gray is back with a show that covers some of the backlash she received after a controversial appearance on Channel 4's Friday Night Live. Expect songs, playfulness and a little splash of vulnerability.Piccolo Tent at Assembly Gardens, 9.05pm, Aug 1-24 (not 6, 12, 19), £18; previews Jul 30-31; two-for-one Aug 4-5
• Jordan Gray: 'It's OK to joke about trans people — we do about everybody else'
The Glaswegian comedian Alana Jackson won So You Think You're Funny? last year and in her debut Fringe show she'll be chatting about moving to London and the characters she's encountered in pubs and at drama school.Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower, 5pm, Aug 2-24 (not 9, 11), £13; previews Jul 30-Aug 1; two-for-one Aug 4-5
Peter Richardson, Comic Strip writer and director, hosts screenings of some of the cult comedy group's funniest work. Each session finishes with a Q&A hosted by Robin Ince and a different special guest, such as Alexie Sayle and Keith Allen. Just the Tonic Nucleus, 1pm, Until Aug 10 (not 4-7), £25, edfringe.com
If you're after scalpel-sharp observational comedy that's packed with jokes, Edinburgh-based Burns (who's supported Daniel Sloss on tour) is your man.Just the Tonic Nucleus, various times, Aug 2-24 (not 12), £15.80; preview Jul 31-Aug 1; two-for-one Aug 4-5
There's no space for nuance or Ted Talk-style comedy at this late-night institution. Each show features a different line-up of top comics who brave a raucous audience for 90 minutes and anything can happen.Gilded Balloon Patter House, 11pm, Aug 1 -25, £16.50; two-for-one Aug 4-5
The sisters Maddy and Marina Bye specialise in raucous physical comedy in which every second of sketch-based goofiness could make you snort.Pleasance Courtyard, 8.20pm, Aug 1-24 (not 11, 15), £13; previews Jul 30-31; two-for-one Aug 4-5
This promising Norwegian comedian's debut is all about growing up as the product of a one-night stand: how his parents made the most of a situation they hadn't chosen and seem to have done quite a good job of.Pleasance Courtyard, 8.40pm, Aug 1-24 (not 12), £14; previews Jul 30-31; two-for-one Aug 4-5
She's sold out her last three Fringe runs, stormed Have I Got News For You and got her own BBC Radio 4 show (Toilet Humour). Now this accomplished and likeable stand-up is planning to cover something she hasn't spoken about yet: sex.Pleasance Courtyard, 7pm, Aug 1-24 (not 13), £10, previews Aug 30-31; two-for-one Aug 4-5
• Chloe Petts review — a comedian who knows how to have fun
This silly man, the king of outrageously funny clowning, is on a mission to perform every Penguin Classic ever written. Prepare for an out-of-body experience.Udderbelly at Underbelly George Square, 9.30pm, Aug 1-25 (not 6, 11, 18), £11; previews Jul 30-31; two-for-one Aug 4-5
You want jokes? This guy has 300 of them to fit into an hour, and they're all golden. He's a regular on BBC Radio 4's The News Quiz and really knows how to make people laugh.Pleasance Courtyard, 5.30pm, Aug 1-24 (not 12, 13), £18; previews Jul 30-31; two-for-one Aug 4-5
This fantastic young stand-up won best newcomer at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards two years ago, and is now trying not to be sweet and relatable. Monkey Barrel 4, 6.25pm, Aug 1-24 (not 11), £15; previews Jul 30-31; two-for-one Aug 4-5
This wonderfully off-kilter comic and actor is back with a medieval coming-of-age story about youthful ambition.Pleasance Dome, 5.40pm, Aug 1-24 (not 12), £10; previews Jul 30-31; two-for-one Aug 4-5
Michelle Brasier and Chloe Petts play co-artistic directors of an amateur theatre group (and ex-lovers) looking for the next musical star. Big-name comics guest-star each night and show off their voices while the hosts bicker and criticise the acts.Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower, 10.30pm, Aug 2, 9, 16, 23; £17
For all show details, offers and bookings go to Edfest.com and lovethefringe.com
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Larger than life In the new book by journalist and author Amy Odell, Paltrow is described as "one of the most resented celebrities in the world". While Gwyneth herself didn't participate in the book, Odell interviewed more than 220 friends, colleagues and industry insiders to create a narrative of how this waifish blonde actress morphed from Brad Pitt's girlfriend to a single, unmistakable name. It follows Odell's last book, Anna: The Biography, which was published in 2022, about Vogue fashion doyenne Anna Wintour. There are parallels between the two women's lives and personas that are undeniable, both are ambitious, larger-than-life figures, and it's easy to see why Odell was transfixed by them. The scale of ambition displayed by both of these women is something that interested the author. "I think ambition is a great thing, and that's a trait I admire greatly in both of them," Odell tells the BBC. "Women's ambition is not always viewed positively, and I wondered if that's why Gwyneth downplayed her ambition early in her career," says Odell. "I also am interested in people who have had cultural impact, and ambition probably helps explain why both were able to accomplish things that truly did impact culture." And there's no denying the scale of Paltrow's goals, says the author. "With Gwyneth, we see her ambition in the breadth of Goop – she wanted Goop to do everything, and to execute it all perfectly. That's how Goop ended up as a newsletter, a publishing imprint, a live events business, a beauty line, a fashion line, and more." Paltrow may have been portrayed as an ice queen, however, her friends refute this. On an episode of Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef, Paltrow's friend Shaman Durek claimed the ice queen label was "all lies". He said, "She will give you the shirt off her back. She doesn't get angry. It takes her a lot to get angry. And even when she gets angry, she feels sad about being angry because she doesn't want to be angry." He added, "Gwyneth is the most loving person." She has also been underestimated. For all her acting talent, Paltrow's love life – and the famous men she has often been attached to – has inspired sensationalist tabloid speculation. Even leading up to the publication of this biography, tabloid magazines were hungrily republishing excerpts purely focused on former partners Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck and Chris Martin. Like father, like daughter? Some describe Paltrow as a "nepo baby". Her father, Bruce Paltrow, was an established producer (Hill Street Blues) and her mother Blythe Danner was, and is, a noted actress (in 2000's Meet the Parents, among many other films). She was attending theatres with her mother from infancy, but she worked for her gigs: auditioning, rehearsing and spending hours on set, determined to get the take. When she won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love in 1999 at the age of 26, her teary acceptance speech made her the butt of relentless jokes. In the same year, The Guardian labelled her "Worst Actress" in its list of "Worst Winner's Speech Awards". In 2023, Paltrow told Variety that the "British press was so horrible to me". One of the focal points of Odell's book is the close father-daughter relationship between Bruce and Gwyneth. It was Paltrow's father, the book suggests, who engendered the sense of heightened privilege and lofty expectations his daughter became accustomed to from childhood. When working on films, Bruce would fly first class with Gwyneth and her brother, Jake, even when, it is claimed, their mother Blythe was flying economy. Odell's book recounts the time Gwyneth boarded a plane with her mother and said, "You mean instead of flying first class, we're flying no class?" "It's impossible to understand someone, as a biographer, if you don't take the time to research where a subject came from, and how their parents impacted them," Odell tells the BBC. "I always make a big effort to interview people who knew a subject's parents, and was fortunate to gain great insight into Gwyneth through those interviews. Gwyneth is a fascinating mix of both of her parents – she has her mother's extraordinary acting talent and her dad's polarising personality and excellent aesthetic taste." More like this:• 10 of the best summer reads• The radical erotic novel that has divided readers• Intimate images from 'the real Hotel California' When her father died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 58, she was inconsolable. Losing your father is a seismic event, says Odell. "Gwyneth lost Bruce when she was 30 years old. I lost my dad suddenly, too, when I was 27," she tells the BBC. "It was a huge, inexplicable tragedy for which I desperately wanted answers where there were none. Gwyneth went looking for answers after her dad was diagnosed with throat cancer – so I can understand the instinct to do that in a very personal way. I think Gwyneth found answers in wellness, and later started sharing her findings with the public through Goop, whether they were rooted in science or not." So, while attention on Paltrow has often centred on her famous partners, or her success attributed to her father's industry networking, to have built Goop into a multimillion-dollar lifestyle empire is to her credit. And despite the accusations of quackery, the fact that she has been derided for it perhaps tells us more about society's attitude to successful women than anything else. Readers will likely flock to Gwyneth: The Biography in search of gossip and insights into the charmed life of celebrities. What they'll get, in addition, is a reminder that ice queen Gwyneth is just as complicated and curious as we are. Soon after turning 50, Gwyneth said, "As a woman, you turn 50, and maybe we all give ourselves permission to be exactly who we are. And we stop trying to be what other people are expecting us to be, and you kind of exhale into this other thing." Ultimately, love her or hate her, Gwyneth is always going to exist in another sphere to 99.9% of us – and whatever we expect her to be, she will probably confound those expectations. Gwyneth: The Biography is published by Simon & Schuster -- For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
