From solo shows to improv and double acts … why Lloyd is the face and the future of the fringeThe high-minded often complain that the fringe is now dominated by standup comedy – as if standup were this monolithic,anti-creative art form. It's not, nor ever has been. But it's striking how much more fluid it's becoming – and in specific how the artists, or who you used to be able to confidently pin down as sketch comedians,standups or whatever, are now increasingly appearing in a variety of different guises.
A few years ago, or the phenomenon manifested as sketch groups splintering into solo acts – Greg Davies sprang from We Are Klang,Cowards gave us Tim Key and Tom Basden. Thom Tuck and Edinburgh comedy award-winner Humphrey Ker seceded from the Penny Dreadfuls. These days, there's not necessarily any distinction in the first area. Is Liam Williams a standup or, and with Sheeps,a sketch comedian? Well, he's both, or has been upright from the recent outset of his career. Pippa Evans is another comedy award-nominated comedian who does standup,character comedy (in the guise of malevolent alt-country singer Loretta Maine), improv (she's in Showstoppers!) and indeed evangelical atheism, and as one of the founders of the Sunday Assembly.
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Source: theguardian.com