Comedy
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 ...
Veronica Lee
Peter Kay’s love – and extensive knowledge – of pop music is well known. He has often spoofed misheard song lyrics in his shows, and has released various charity singles over the years. Now, with this series of shows to raise funds for Stand Up to Cancer and Cancer Research, he displays his DJing skills with shows of three hours of non-stop dance music – a wonderful kind of school disco (for those who remember such things).That is, if the school discos you attended back in the day took place in an arena that holds several thousand and had a video and light show that frequently 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
The UK Pun Championships have quickly become a fixture of the Leicester Comedy Festival, and this year the organisers installed a boxing ring at De Montfort Hall to underline the event's competitive element.The eight contestants – a mixture of established acts on local club circuits and relative newcomers – were of varying ability and there was the odd cove among some obvious talent. While it was great fun, it was rather laidback and lacked much competitive edge until the final, and connoisseurs of slam poetry might have found proceedings rather tame despite the pugilistic setting.Jason Byrne 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
Nick Mohammed doesn't do things by halves as his chatty airhead alter ego Mr Swallow. Forget the scholarly approach of finely researched biographies of Harry Houdini (“boring!”); his “first-ever entirely true auto-biopic” of the magician and escapologist comes complete with conjuring tricks, song-and-dance numbers and a whole lot of laughs.Ably assisted by David Elms as Mr Goldsworth and Kieran Hodgson as Jonathan (in oriental tunics for no discernible reason), plus an onstage pianist, Mr Swallow chatters on, while Mr Goldsworth, the producer of this show within a show, has a devil of a job Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The main attraction of this new US sitcom for a UK audience is that two British actors - Stephen Fry and Susannah Fielding – appear in it. The basic premise is that Jack Gordon, a famed reporter, has led a thrilling outdoorsman life, writing about his adventures for the magazine Outdoor Limits. But then his editor, Roland (Fry), recalls him to the office in downtown Chicago and tells him the publication is going web-only, and that he will now be writing about the great outdoors from, well, the not-so-great indoors.Jack (Joel McHale, pictured below with Fry) is, in best sitcom fashion, a fish Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Scott Gibson won best newcomer at last year's Edinburgh Comedy Awards for Life After Death, about the near-fatal brain haemorrhage he had as a 24-year-old in 2009. It happened after the Glaswegian had been to Blackpool for a stag weekend with 11 mates, including the groom “Junkie Steve”. Some rich material for an hour of comedy in there...He begins by telling us how happy he is to be in London as it's 400 miles from his partner. Oh dear – I thought that kind of joke was the territory of Roy “Chubby” Brown. The story itself starts with that stag weekend and a 72-year-old “Mr Magoo” minibus Read more ...
Veronica Lee
There have been some treats on the comedy circuit in 2016, a year when we definitely needed something to laugh at. Here, in no particular order, are my comedy highlights of the past 12 months. I hope you had as much fun seeing them, or reading about them on theartsdesk. The Catherine Tate Show LiveWhat a way to bring a television show to life - with a rollicking great entertainment like this. The show was stuffed with characters we haven't seen on our screens since 2007, and Catherine Tate hasn't performed comedy live since her early days at the Edinburgh Fringe, but even the fluffed 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 ...