Tristram Fane Saunders

Recommendations and the latest reviews from the Telegraph critics on the ground at Edinburgh International Festival and Edinburgh Fringe.

The Edinburgh Comedy Award – the world's largest comedy prize – has launched the careers of countless stars, from Al Murray and Frank Skinner to . But this year's winner is one for the record books.

Why is there so much celebrity poetry? Since 2014, when Faber scorned the ghost of by printing the American actor James Franco's doggerel, our

No one wields an insult like a writer. Here are the biggest fights in literary history, from sisterly fallouts to an actual duel

The days are growing shorter, the nights are drawing in. The season of chestnuts, falling leaves and comedy tours is upon us. Autumn is, traditionally, when up-and-coming comics hit the road with the material that they spent all August polishing and honing at the Edinburgh Fringe – which means it's often the best time of year to see them. (Katie Norris and Helen Bauer, in particular, are on brilliant form.)

An experimental play about the Knoedler forgery scandal is a brilliant technical feat, writes Tristram Fane Saunders, but what can it tell us about the art world?

I’ve been covering comedy for The Telegraph since 2015, a beat I’m always grateful for: there’s nothing like a good laugh to drive away the last of the winter blues. This season’s best stand-up gigs a...

My interviewee – an earnest, patient man in his late 50s – has been made to feel ashamed for most of his life, just for being the person he was born as. He struggles to book venues for his work. He is censored online. What he – and others like him – face is “a different kind of

After years of being ridiculed, the academic has ‘reclaimed’ his name through comedy shows and delivering lectures on phallic humour

The Eurovision Song Contest 2026 reaches its grand finale this Saturday. All eyes turn to Vienna, as Britain pins its hopes on Look Mum No Computer, the alt-electronica alter-ego of Mancunian singer S...