fri 29/03/2024

Comedy Reviews

Bridget Christie, The Haymarket, Basingstoke review - making the menopause funny

Veronica Lee

Bridget Christie is hot. Not in that way, you mucky pups. She’s hot because she’s 51 and menopausal, she tells us – and she’s on a mission to explain why, rather than marking a negative moment in her life, it’s the start of a new age, and a good one at that.

Read more...

Ricky Gervais, BIC review - nudging the boundaries again

Veronica Lee

Ricky Gervais tells us at the top of the show that there was a backlash to his 2022 Netflix special SuperNature. So big, he says, that it’s become the most watched comedy special of the year. “So I’ve learnt my lesson,” he says with a side-eye to the audience.

Read more...

'Weird Al' Yankovic, London Palladium review - deep dive into his original songs

Veronica Lee

The most striking thing at the London Palladium for the last night of “Weird Al” Yankovic's mini-tour of the UK was the number of youngsters in the audience. I don't mean young adults, but children, who were there with their parents and even grandparents. 

Read more...

Catherine Cohen, Brighton Komedia review - songs and New York sass

Veronica Lee

Catherine Cohen made quite an impact at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe, where she won best newcomer in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for The Twist? She's Gorgeous. Global events have delayed her follow-up and a UK debut tour, but here it is, and Come For Me was worth waiting for.

Read more...

Lucy Porter, Cambridge Junction review - making light of a midlife crisis

Veronica Lee

A lot has been happening in Lucy Porter’s life since she last toured. The pandemic we all know about, so she doesn’t detain us to recount her lockdown woes; they get merely tangential mentions in Wake Up Call as she talks about more recent events which included a health scare leading to something of a midlife crisis.

Read more...

Alex Edelman, Menier Chocolate Factory review - London run for unmissable off-Broadway hit

Helen Hawkins

At one point in this brilliantly constructed and performed set, Alex Edelman ponders on the catchment area for his comedy and figures it might be the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Nah: this is comedy that can talk to anybody with a brain. 

Read more...

Best of 2022: Comedy

Veronica Lee

In 2022 we were finally able to welcome back the first “proper” Edinburgh Fringe since 2019. While I was disappointed that a few established comics – they know who they are – hadn't used the enforced layoff from live comedy to, you know, write new material, I was delighted to see others who had very obviously done so – and produced really memorable work.

Read more...

A Christmas Carol-ish, Soho Theatre review - Mr Swallow causes havoc again

Veronica Lee

At this time of year you can't move for productions of A Christmas Carol, Dickens' seasonal morality tale. Some are brilliant, some so-so, but this one by the power-crazed impresario Mr Swallow, whose ambition always exceeds his talent, is a joy.

Read more...

Tom Ward, Brighton Komedia review - offbeat observational gags

Veronica Lee

Tom Ward does his audience research at the top of the show, asking fairly mundane questions about their ages and where they live before he poses an unexpectedly pointed “Who is in an open relationship?” It's the beat before “They're aware of...” that makes it a killer joke.

Read more...

Sara Pascoe, Assembly Hall, Tunbridge Wells review - motherhood and the perils of fame

Veronica Lee

Sara Pascoe comes on stage to tell us there has been a small wardrobe malfunction. She's made an effort and is wearing something glitzy, but it restricts her movement in one direction and gives too much in another. Should she go and change into something comfortable but a bit grungy?

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

Bach's Easter Oratorio, OAE, Whelan, QEH review – the j...

Waiting, and hoping, may prove just as intense an experience as the fulfilment of a wish – or of a fear. Bach knew that, and infused his Easter...

Album: Jane Weaver - Love In Constant Spectacle

“Motif,” Love In Constant Spectacle’s fourth track, is the closest Jane Weaver has come in over a decade to the folk influences embraced...

First Person: author-turned-actor Lydia Higman on a play tha...

I first read Anne Gunter’s story about five years ago, when I was in my first year of university at Oxford, little knowing it would over time lead...

The Origin of Evil review - Laure Calamy stars in gripping F...

A young woman (Laure Calamy; Call my Agent!; Full Time; Her Way) is trying to pluck up the courage to call her...

Foam, Finborough Theatre review - fascism and f*cking in a G...

In a too brightly tiled Gentlemen’s public convenience (Nitin Parmar’s beautifully realised set is as much a character as any of the men we meet...

Album: Ride - Interplay

What a time to be alive it is for fans of late Eighties, early Nineties ...

Schubert Piano Sonatas 4, Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review -...

“Death doesn’t scare me at all,” said my friend Christopher Hitchens during our last telephone conversation. “After all, it’s the only certainty...

Vossa Jazz 2024 review - Norwegian festival embraces William...

“The name of this group is Mayan Space Station.” In spite of the billing as The William Parker Trio, their bassist – coolly introducing himself as...

First person: playwright Paul Grellong on keeping pace with...

I’m writing this in the lobby of the...