standup comedy
Veronica Lee
The title of Marcus Brigstocke’s latest show, Vitruvian Mango, is, like the man himself, rather clever. He appears on stage with a mocked-up version the Da Vinci drawing it references with his naked body replacing the artist’s model to illustrate the theme of the show, which I saw at the Alex in Faversham. His version of Da Vinci’s image of the perfect male form is, he attests, “sweeter, softer, seasonally available and, when ripe, delicately perfumed”.Brigstocke – dressed in shirt and tie, with a comfy cardigan on top – addresses modern manhood and poses the question: what are men for? Now Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Matt Forde gives a warning: “Don’t heckle the disabled – that’s a hate crime.” What an opener for his latest touring show, The End of an Era, which I saw at the Oxford Glee Club. To explain: in 2023 the back pain that Forde thought was sciatica turned out to be spinal cancer. Major surgery that included severing nerves in his nether regions followed, and post-surgery he now uses a stoma bag and self-catheterises. Thankfully Forde has recovered.He mines a slew of jokes here – mostly at the expense of his dignity – and the natural born comic looks on the bright side, as the very good poo Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Harry Hill reminds us at one point during his latest touring show that he’s 60, but there’s no let-up in the energy he brings to New Bits and Greatest Hits, a pleasing mixture of old and new material showing he still packs a punch on stage.There are sufficient new gags to justify the first part of the title, but equally enough old ones to keep his long-term fans happy – although the audience at Wilton’s Music Hall suggested that his fanbase now covers a few generations who appreciate Hill's madcap comedy.The gags – visual, physical, outrageous puns and sly asides – come thick and fast, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
“I really am the repository for all your shit,” Nina Conti’s famous Monkey hand puppet tells her. Monkey may have a point.The brilliance of Conti’s ventriloquism is that it seems to burst, unedited, from her id. Filth, surrealism and lightning-fast gags spume in a torrent whenever her teeth are closed tight. Her non-puppet stage persona is, by contrast, all light and loveliness, apparently bemused by what’s being dredged up. Quite apart from how she has the Brighton Dome in stitches, watched purely on the level of technical skill and psychological tightrope walking, her shows are astonishing Read more ...
Veronica Lee
At the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe, Amy Gledhill won best show for Make Me Look Fit on the Poster, ostensibly a cheery collection of stories about the weird and wonderful things that happen to her. But under the guise of feelgood comedy with herself as the butt of many of the gags, Gledhill cleverly weaves in a thoughtful study of female body image and self-esteem.Her Soho residency is the last stage of the Hull comic's sellout post-Fringe tour, and she immediately establishes a rapport with the audience, encouraging them to throw knickers at her as if she were a rock star of a certain vintage ( Read more ...
Veronica Lee
This special, available for a limited time only, acts as a sort of appetiser for the next leg of a mega tour that started in 2023, and still has some months to run. The comic played 13 nights in London on the UK leg and the hour-long Russell Howard Live at the Palladium is taken from those dates.He's a thinker, Howard tells us. But it's not a brag, more a mundane description of a comic's life; he has a thought, and then works out how to make it funny. It's not difficult, or onerous, and he's lucky to make a living in comedy, he avers. After all, it's not a proper job like the one done by his Read more ...
Veronica Lee
By all accounts Chris McCausland had to be persuaded to take part in the most recent series of Strictly Come Dancing, which he won with his professional partner Diane Buswell. It would be a commendable achievement for any non-dancer, but for a blind man it was remarkable, and made a huge emotional impact with viewers who warmed not just to his efforts but also his cheerful demeanour. Now, McCausland is back to the day job as a comic.He starts by referencing the BBC programme, telling us it interrupted the tour of Yonks!, his latest show: “I developed a rather unnatural interest in ballroom Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Europe's biggest comedy festival, which showcases established stars, works in progress, workshops and competitions, kicks off next month, and this gala show certainly whetted our appetites for its 700-plus events. It was hosted by the nimble-witted Maisie Adam.David Eagle may have been a new name to some in the audience but he ended the first half on a high. He's blind, and gets some very strong material from it – “I've hit the ground running. Occupational hazard,” he deadpanned, strapping on an accordion. While some hearts may have sank at the sight, he then performed a wickedly funny, Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Looking back over the past 12 months, it struck me how it has been the shows fashioned from personal stories that have stayed with me. It wasn't simply that the comics could make very good jokes about their travails or embarrassments, but that the material had a strong ring of authenticity. There's nothing wrong with delivering other people's gags (plenty of top-flight performers do it, of course) but when it rings true, it's somehow funnier.So among the comics whose shows I've liked most were Kiri Pritchard-McLean's Peacock (tour restarts 25 January), in which she talks about her experiences Read more ...
Veronica Lee
In April 2023 the actor and comic Jamie Foxx had a stroke and was lucky to survive. In his latest Netflix Special, What Had Happened Was... he tells us about it, and his recovery. It's fitting, he tells us, that the show was recorded in Atlanta, just 400 yards away from the hospital he was taken to by his sister, who knew something was seriously wrong.The show is a curious – and undoubtedly unique – mix of comedy, music and thanksgiving that at times feels more like a revivalist meeting as Foxx attests repeatedly that God saved him. The religiosity – and there's a lot of it – may be off- Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Ricky Gervais begins by bringing us up to date with the latest “outrage” he has caused; two Netflix specials, SuperNature and Armageddon, upset some people, he tells us, thus giving them even more attention than they might otherwise have had. So now with Mortality he's probably going to upset some more, thus making the Netflix special that will follow its lengthy tour (ending in November next year) even more successful. “Stupid cunts.”Well, yes, Gervais is very good at needling those who no doubt will take umbrage at some of the jokes in Mortality, the ones about slavery, or paedophiles and Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Kiri Pritchard-McLean has spoken on stage before about her interest in helping young people – including in her 2017 show, Appropriate Adult, in which she talked about being a mentor to a vulnerable youngster. In Peacock, her latest touring show which I saw as part of the inaugural Brighton Dome Comedy Festival, she talks about how she and her partner, Dan, came to be foster carers.There are, the comic informs us, more than 100,000 children in the care system in the UK. It's a subject that in less assured hands could be dull, preachy or an exercise in virtue-signalling – she Read more ...