standup comedy
Veronica Lee
What a day to open your political stand-up show, entitled State of the Nation, a few hours after Theresa May had announced a snap election. If Ayesha Hazarika needed any extra material, yesterday morning's events would certainly have supplied it. And sure enough, she gamely starts the show by saying drily, “You can only imagine how much fun I've had today,” before ripping up the show's script.She does some strong topical material at the top of the hour before she settles into the show proper, when she neatly puts the election into context for Labour voters. Jeremy Corbyn will not be amused at Read more ...
Jasper Rees
In the closing credits of Acorn Antiques, wobbling diagonally across the screen, it says the part of Berta was taken by “Victoria Woods”. Has there ever been a lovelier, truer typo? There was only one Victoria Wood, and yet she seemed somehow to be plural. She wrote and performed sketches and sitcom, songs and stand-up, musicals and drama. She directed, she produced. And she never seemed to stop until, alas, last year.Our Friend Victoria (BBC One) is a piquant reminder that television comedy has never unearthed anyone remotely like her. Her genius is irreplaceable. That genius, as celebs and Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Russell Howard is in typically chipper form, and so he should be. Dismissed by some at the start of his career as just one of the slew of beige twenty-something blokes emerging in stand-up in the Noughties, he has built a solid television career and a huge stand-up following. Now, after a hugely successful UK tour, which included a record-breaking 10 consecutive nights at the Royal Albert Hall – overtaking the six shared by comics Victoria Wood and Billy Connolly, and the eight shared by singers Frank Sinatra and Barry Manilow – he's embarking on a lengthy worldwide tour.He's living up to its Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Trimmings, trimmings. They prove the final straw for Molière’s Harpagon in this new adaptation of the classic French comedy-farce. The menu for his wedding banquet – which he doesn’t want to spend a centime more on than he has to – is being concocted by chef-cum-dogsbody, Jacques. Soup, yes; a bit of meat, possibly. But trimmings… The very thought of them provokes a howl of despair from Griff Rhys Jones, who plays The Miser’s titular tight-purse with enormous gusto.Sean Foley’s West End production definitely doesn't hold back on the trimmings, and they’re not just the standard stuffing on-the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Miles Jupp starts by telling us he’s trying to fathom the kind of comic he should be, after he overheard a comment by an audience member at a show on his previous tour: he was nice, the man proffered, but what he said had taken him by surprise. So should Jupp now be full and malice and predictable?The answer, without spoiling it for you, is no. Instead Jupp is his usual gentle and fogeyish self that listeners to Radio 4's News Quiz, which he hosts, television panel shows on which he regularly appears, fans of Rev and The Thick of It, and those who have seen his previous stand-up shows, know Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Suzi Ruffell tells it straight: she's working-class and proud, but some people might think she's "common", which is the show's title. She has devised a quick quiz for us to check if we're working-class ourselves, and among the amusing tell-tale signs is: did your mum use to freeze milk? A new one on me, but the show is off to a good start.Ruffell comes from a large family in Portsmouth and, for some reason the comic can't fathom, they ignored birthdays and made little of Christmas, but made a big deal of Bonfire Night – and when talking about her relatives she paints a vivid picture of Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Comedy fans will be familiar with "New York neurotic" – performed mostly by Jewish writers and comics, with Woody Allen being the exemplar. Chris Gethard, however, is from New Jersey, was raised as a Catholic and is not neurotic at all. Rather, this guy has been suffering from actual, pain-in-the-head, clinically diagnosed and heavily medicated depression for most of his life, and has now written a show about it.Career Suicide (which Gethard has performed in New York and at the Edinburgh Fringe last year) is certainly a frank account. He takes us through the low points - the suicidal thoughts Read more ...
Veronica Lee
American comic Michelle Wolf was nominated for best newcomer at this year's Edinburgh Comedy Awards with this show, So Brave, but she is also a writer on The Daily Show With Trevor Noah. She's an acute observer both of human quirks and the American political scene.It's a shame then that this show – which doesn't quite stretch to an hour – hasn't been added to in order to reflect the seismic events in US politics since Wolf appeared in the Scottish capital during August. Sure, her opening line, referencing the election, is a sardonic: “What a time to be alive,” but that's the last we hear Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The period before Christmas is, inevitably, when stand-ups rush to market. With so much material now available on YouTube, fewer comics release DVDs nowadays, but some of the best still do. This is theartsdesk's selection of the best live acts caught on film.Billy Connolly: High HorseBilly Connolly, now 74 and suffering from Parkinson's disease and prostate cancer, belies the ravages of his various illnesses. His delivery may be a little less impassioned, but by golly can he still tell a shaggy dog story better than any other comic. He deals frankly and funnily with his condition: “I'm going Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Tom Allen may have started life in Bromley, a non-descript south London suburb, but there was always a touch of Oscar Wilde about him – whether in his dress sense or his way with words, as we have learned from previous shows. It was obvious to him – and to school bullies – that he was not like them, a gay, bookish, clever boy with a very distinct way of expressing himself.It's his suburban background that Allen mines for his latest show, Indeed, which debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe. At first sight, it may appear to be his most biographical hour, featuring as it does a lengthy anecdote about Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Susan Calman's latest show has a delightfully silly title – Calman Before the Storm – which neatly doesn't pin her down to any particular theme but instead allows her to riff on a wide range of subjects. It makes for a pleasing hour of feelgood comedy.This show started life at the Edinburgh Fringe earlier this year, while the Rio Olympics were taking place; but Calman wasn't worried that she might lose potential audiences. She knows her demographic: “Oh, I’d love to go see Susan, but no… the taekwondo is on!”Calman infuses the hour with some terrifically sharp political comedyPeople Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Romesh Ranganathan has had an astonishing rise in comedy. The former teacher did his first full-length show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2013, having made his debut there in 2010 in the newcomer competition, So You Think You're Funny? Now he's a television panel-show regular, and the second series of his travelogue Asian Provocateur is currently on the BBC. His success, he deadpans, is because, with his Sri Lankan heritage and a lazy eye, he ticks not one but two diversity boxes.It's down to talent, of course, and Ranganathan, a great student of comedy, knows what appeals. In truth his Read more ...