Comedy
Veronica Lee
Comedy promoters Just the Tonic have been keeping occupied during various lockdowns, and are continuing with livestreamed shows until comics can perform live in clubs and theatres again. This show was presented as part of JTT's fortnightly variety show Working From Home – which does what it says on the tin, comics doing their bit from the comfort of their homes livestreamed into ours. As ever, it was a cracking Saturday-night line-up with JTT's owner, Darrell Martin, compere for the evening. Matt Forde kicked off proceedings, appearing as Boris Johnson, complete with a blond fright wig Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Fawlty Towers: For the RecordA special, limited-edition vinyl release of the entire comedy series written by John Cleese and Connie Booth to celebrate the BBC sitcom's 40th anniversary. The 12 episodes offer a masterclass in comedy writing and performance – even if they now come with a trigger warning, that some of humour is “of its time”. Much of the special linking narration for the six white vinyl LPs – by hapless waiter Manuel (Andrew Sachs) – is unique to the vinyl version and hasn’t been available since the original pressings. As well as Cleese appearing as harassed hotelier Basil Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Chinese Arts Now was founded in 2005 and aims to produce and present work that explores Chinese themes, stories and art forms in the UK. Its annual festival includes a comedy night (presented in conjunction with Soho Theatre), and this year three comics of Chinese heritage – Evelyn Mok, Ken Cheng and Phil Wang – performed.The event, livestreamed from the comics' homes, was in a novel format; Mok (who was born in Sweden and describes herself as Scandinasian) introduced, and we saw clips of them performing, followed by them discussing the themes in their material.It kicked off with a clip from Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Lockdown has been mostly pants for live performers, comics included. There was that brief foray into open-air performances last summer, made even more fun by some lovely weather (although not always) – and I sincerely hope that promoters and comics will venture outdoors again this spring and summer.But it was social media that created some breakout stars – whether on TikTok, Twitter, YouTube or elsewhere. Comedy couple Rachel Parris (The Mash Report) and actor-comic Marcus Brigstocke, an Edinburgh Fringe stalwart, were hardly unknown before Covid hit but they have become an internet sensation Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The Leicester Comedy Festival, always great fun, was one of the last to be able to run fully in 2020, but this year it's not so lucky. Instead of several hundred events in and around Leicester, the 2021 iteration is an online-only version with many fewer shows of Zoom gigs and interviews.The opening show, First Night Funnies, was, I'm sad to say, a rather disappointing affair, complete with some technical glitches which are, of course, nobody's fault but added to the sense of something being thrown together rather than planned.Sikisa was a lively and friendly host who immediately connected Read more ...
Veronica Lee
There's something in the water, as no fewer than three comics are launching podcasts related to the one thing we can't do at the moment – travel. They're having a laugh, aren't they? Other offerings include escapist fun with superheroes, music collections and a spoof true-crime series.Available on all podcast platforms unless stated Alan Carr's Life's a BeachThe comic invites a celebrity guest each week to talk about their travel adventures, either for work or pleasure. If you enjoyed Carr's television chat show, you love this, and it has added domestic drama as the podcasts are recorded Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It has taken three years for the second series of Back to reach our screens (a combination of the creator being busy, a star being unwell and Covid), but it was worth the wait. To recap for those who didn't see the first series of Simon Blackwell's very dark comedy (now on All4), it concerns Andrew (Robert Webb), who suddenly came back into the life of Stephen (David Mitchell), who is, he says, his long-lost foster brother.Blackwell worked on Peep Show, and one could argue that Mitchell and Webb are playing cleverly constructed versions of who their characters on that show, Mark and Jez Read more ...
Veronica Lee
We're still some way off being able to see live performances in actual clubs and theatres, but here are some more comedy podcasts to keep your laughter quotient healthy in the meanwhile.Available on all podcast platforms unless stated. Office LadiesWhat a super idea this is: best friends and former co-stars on the US version of The Office, Jenna Fischer (who played Pam, one half of the “will they, won't they” office romance with Jim) and Angela Kinsey (Angela, the office stickler for rules and cat obsessive), give the gen on the hit workplace comedy. In each podcast episode they recap an Read more ...
Veronica Lee
What a year that was. Live performance was stopped dead in its tracks for most of 2020, and comedy – as viscerally live as you can get in dark and sweaty enclosed spaces above pubs or in club basements – was particularly hard hit. Never again, I suspect, will comedy fans complain about the privations of broom-cupboard venues at the Edinburgh Fringe.I'm so glad I went to Glasgow in March to see what turned out to be one of the last major gigs of 2020, Steve Martin and Martin Short (pictured below), who were great fun. But while it wasn't a bumper year for comedy overall – how could it be Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Podcasts have got many of us through 2020, starved as we have been for most of it of live comedy to leave the house to see. Here's a selection of some of the best; they are available on all podcast platforms unless stated.Dear Joan & JerichaAfter the spoof agony aunts recently went public with their first in-person appearance (pictured above), they spoil us with a third series of the award-winning podcast. Julia Davis (who plays Joan) and Vicki Pepperdine (Jericha) riff on all matters to do with sex and relationships, so prepare to have your eyes popped with their outrageously graphic Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Edgy comedy runs the risk of discomfiting the audience so much that they can't relax and enjoy the show. But Natalie Palamides, appearing as Nate, her alter ego, in Nate: A One Man Show on Netflix, pulls it off, and then some.The show, which has a large degree of audience participation and which I first saw at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018, is wonderfully provocative. Here, to British eyes at least, it has an added layer of – perhaps in some way sadistic – enjoyment (if that's the right word) in seeing it performed before a liberal US audience at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, who appear even Read more ...
Veronica Lee
When the world was in lockdown and performers turned to TikTok to keep in touch with their fans, Sarah Cooper started using the online platform for short videos where she lip-synced Donald Trump's speeches, and they quickly went global. Not many people can say they owe worldwide fame to Covid and America's worst-ever president.Now Cooper has a very good special on Netflix, and it shows that there is so much more to the actress and writer than her TikTok fame. But then those short videos showed what a great actor she is, with every twitch of the eye and curl of the lip neatly capturing Trump's Read more ...