Comedy
emma.simmonds
Proving that laughter is the only sure-fire cure for the January blues, this year's London Comedy Film Festival took place over four days from Thursday 24th to Sunday 27th January. Known commonly and affectionately as LOCO, it once again showcased the best of comedy filmmaking from around the world, lined-up alongside a range of imaginative events - a programme seemingly designed to give the most depressing month of the year a well deserved kick up the arse.Giving the intriguing but daunting sounding "Laughter Yoga" a wide berth on Thursday morning, I opted instead for Thursday evening's BFI Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The line-up for this year's Glasgow International Comedy Festival has been announced. The festival, now in its 11th year, takes place 14-31 March with 411 show at 46 venues in Scotland's second city.There's a strong Scottish contingent led by Susan Calman, Fred Macaulay, Jerry Sadowitz, Janey Godley and Daniel Sloss, and from south of the border are Harry Hill, Jimmy Carr, Phill Jupitus and John Shuttleworth. International flavour is added by Canadians Katherine Ryan and Tom Stade, and there's an evening of American comedy supported by one of the festival's sponsors, United Airlines. St Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The generation of alternative comedians who emerged around 30 years ago have long since elbowed their predecessors into the long grass and themselves become the establishment. Of no performer can that be said with more certainty than Rowan Atkinson. His rubbery physiognomy is instantly recognisable to billions, which is why he – or rather Mr Bean - was granted pride of place at the Opening Ceremony as guest artist with Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra.His curriculum vitae barely needs restating. He is the only performer from Not the Nine O’Clock News who still makes a living Read more ...
Veronica Lee
A new Friday-night cabaret club opens tomorrow at the fabled Café de Paris in London's Leicester Square. The Grade II-listed venue's subterranean ballroom, where Marlene Dietrich, Frank Sinatra and Noël Coward once performed, will be home to Black Cat Cabaret, a weekly show of music, comedy, striptease and magic.Cabaret, and its close relation burlesque, is an artform that has undergone a rebirth in the past decade and, while critics may argue over what exactly defines cabaret, they at least agree that it's a suitably encompassing label for a gathering of acts with more than a touch of the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
There are oodles of comedy DVDs released for the Christmas market - here's a selection of the best.Dara Ó BríainCraic DealerIn more than a decade of watching him work, I've yet to see the hugely likeable Irish comic doing anything less than a very well put-together and gag-filled show, and this is no exception. Filmed at the Edinburgh Playhouse, it shows him at the top of his form and displays one of his great strengths - interacting with the audience and creating great comedy on the spot from it. He also talks about adult alternatives to Nativity plays, how the modern Irish diaspora is so Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Susan Calman's star has risen of late - the Glaswegian lawyer turned stand-up has been an Edinburgh Fringe favourite for some while now, but in the past two years she has become an established Radio 4 presence through the likes of The News Quiz, and has been seen acting on television on shows such as Sharon Horgan's comedy drama Dead Boss.If I had one criticism of Calman's stand-up before, it was that the woman was hidden behind comedy that was accomplished but felt rather impersonal. That's not a cavil to be made with This Lady's Not For Turning Either, however; as its nod to Margaret Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Alan Davies used to be a regular on the stand-up circuit, before acting and other television work, including ad campaigns and being a panellist on the long-running quiz QI, took him away from live comedy. But now, after a break of more than a decade, he's back on the road and the rest has clearly served him well.He got the mentions of Jonathan Creek and QI out of the way fairly quickly as he did some chitchat with the audience. He appeared unfazed by the largely unresponsive audience at the Hackney Empire, where I saw the show, but he turned a friendly heckle - which considerably disrupted Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Among the many things Jenny Eclair does these days - writing novels, panto, appearing on television in various guises - she has found time to go back on the road with Eclairious. TV hasn't curbed her deliciously potty mouth, thank goodness, and even though she says by way of introduction “Please lower your expectations”, she proves to be on fine form, as ever.Her material is much of the same old shtick - railing against the ravages of time on her body and libido, the shortcomings of men and the irritations of other people's children - and whereas a comic such as Jack Dee delivers a similarly Read more ...
graeme.thomson
“When I was a teenager even I had a period when apparently I was quite morose,” Jack Dee tells the Edinburgh crowd, his hangdog features projecting various extremes of existential agony. “But, hey, I got through it." This may be Dee’s first standup tour for six years, but it’s very much business as usual in terms of perpetuating his role as comedy’s Mr Grumpy, eternally exasperated, irritable, acerbic. And, truth be told, these days a tiny bit predictable.Apparently Dee decided to tour again because he figured someone had to keep the magic of 2012 going. He does indeed take a brief frolic Read more ...
Veronica Lee
For the past few years Russell Kane has mined much of his comedy from his fraught relationship with his father, now dead. It's a neat twist then to postulate his latest show, Posturing Delivery, on his relationship with "Ivan", Kane's entirely imaginary son.It's high concept, and in many a comic's hands it simply wouldn't work, but Kane - as ever flouncing and skittering across the stage, energetically acting out much of the comedy, complete with perfect mimicry and a lot of campery - pulls it off, drawing us expertly into his fantasy world in which he wonders what kind of dad he would be now Read more ...
Veronica Lee
If the first rule of being a novelist is to write about what you know, then the first rule of comedy is to be yourself. And in that respect Shappi Khorsandi starts with an advantage, as being herself means she's warm and likeable and the audience are instantly on her side. And when it comes to her material, she started in stand-up with another advantage, in that her parents had to escape persecution in Iran (her father is a satirist who upset the ayatollahs), and for a while the family were given protection officers when they moved to London.She has always mined her own life for material, Read more ...