Comedy
Veronica Lee
Eddie Izzard tells us at the top of a show lasting two-and-a-half hours that he's on the home straight in a mammoth tour taking in 28 countries. He first performed Force Majeure in 2013 and now, in a slightly rebooted form, he parks it in the West End for an extended run as Force Majeure Reloaded.Izzard has ditched some of the weaker elements but the core - his deconstruction of the history of civilisation - remains the heart of the show. He nails his colours to the mast quickly – he puts his trust in people, not in authority figures or religion – and God himself is presented as an Read more ...
Veronica Lee
When Anne Edmonds comes on stage I notice a banjo sitting ominously in a corner. She is full of Australian bonhomie and energy, instantly connecting with the audience, and our first impression is that she's a likeable chatterbox, telling anecdotes without punchlines - and she begins with a lengthy one about spewing copiously on a New Year's Day flight in front of her parents some years ago.But as You Know What I'm Like progresses, and she dips and out of stories about suburban life (something also charted in fellow Aussie Sam Simmons's latest show), we see Edmonds weaving together a tale Read more ...
Veronica Lee
What a trouper Bill Bailey is. Just as he's introducing what is clearly meant to be a showstopper in which he and the audience would create a number in the style of “maestro of melancholia” Moby, his technology lets him down. But no fear, Bailey ad libs for several minutes as he tries to rectify the problem, knocks out an Irish reel on one of the many instruments on stage, and moves on when it's clear that the “Moby song" will have to remain unsung.Moby gets off lightly among the musicians Bailey mentions – Madonna, Kanye West, Bono and Adele all get a subtle kicking, while Elton John Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The show's title, Outside, Looking In, might suggest we're in for some philosophising from Ed Byrne – but then, after 22 years in the business, the Irish observational comic has earned the right. And indeed, he covers subjects such as feminism, slut-shaming and gender imbalance, but in the mix there is also some material about the perils of dating and a graphic description of food poisoning. Even the cleverest comics – and Byrne is assuredly one of those – can't resist the occasional lavatorial gag.And while he has some serious points to make, the political stuff is never preachy and Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Loadsamoney stomps on clutching a wad of twenties. He hasn’t been seen since the Eighties, he advises, because he became irrelevant. In the strict sense Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse have never been relevant. Relevant comedy has a habit of becoming irrelevant, which is why their Legends! tour is such a treat for audiences over a certain age. It issues a gloriously defiant two-fingered salute to time and tide and political correctness (we are welcomed as “ladies and gentlemen and transsexuals”).The years have worked their magic, too. When the Old Gits motor onstage on their mobility Read more ...
Jasper Rees
When is a comedian not funny? Dawn French has spent so much of her life making audiences laugh that her debut as a one-woman performer requires some recalibration. The next-door smile is as big as ever, and the eagerness to be liked, so the early section – about the thieving march of time – looks and sounds like a stand-up routine that isn’t quite landing. Laughs are thin on the ground. It’s only about 20 minutes in, as she tells of her early childhood on an Air Force base in Yorkshire, that her intentions begin swimming into proper focus. Unlike some pup stand-up, she isn’t mining her Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It may seem strange to begin a review of a comedy gig with a description of the Tube journey home. But it was noticeable that the crowds who left the O2 Arena in London after Michael McIntyre's new show Happy & Glorious weren't talking about it. About the weather, the full train, what they were up to at the weekend, yes; but his show, no.That is not to say it was poor, or that there wasn't a lot of laughter in the room. Far from it. McIntyre is an experienced enough pro that he can construct a decent evening's entertainment, and he did here. But consistently rolling-in-the-aisles funny? Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Alan Carr has titled his latest live show Yap, Yap, Yap! Because, he says as the show opens, everyone has too much to say these days, much of it - such as the stuff on Twitter - not worth listening to. Coming from the host of Channel 4 chatshow Chatty Man, that's comically rich. But such is Carr's genuine likeability that the audience overlook that and settle in to enjoy the evening.I wish I could say I enjoyed it as much as they did. The fans at London's Hammersmith Apollo were laughing in all the right places, but then Carr's delivery, looks to the audience and body language telegraphed Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Sam Simmons' new show – for which he won the Edinburgh Comedy Award last month and the Barry award at Melbourne earlier this year – is titled Spaghetti for Breakfast, but could easily be called “Things That Shit Me”; the phrase pops up repeatedly on a recorded loop, as the Australian comic runs through the large number of things that annoy him.The hour-long show is the surrealist comedian's most personal yet; among the wonderfully silly clowning, the comic delivers painfully honest anecdotes about his childhood, which help explain “why I turned out this weird”.Apparently throwaway Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Kevin Bridges, although only 28, has been performing comedy for 10 years. Strange to relate then, that he still gets rattled by hecklers (even friendly ones telling him he's awesome – “Relax, it's not a One Direction concert”) and that this otherwise excellent gig descended into acrimony with Bridges leaving the stage at the end clearly irritated.It really wasn't that bad – and Bridges' annoyance was far greater than that of the audience, so let's begin with the many positives. In A Whole Different Story the Glaswegian relates what a year it has been – for him personally and in the broader Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Kieran Hodgson, Voodoo Rooms ★★★★When Kieran Hodgson was growing up in West Yorkshire in the early years of the century, he was obsessed with two things – cycling and Lance Armstrong, then the greatest cyclist the world had ever seen.In 2003, where the engaging and very funny Lance begins, 15-year-old Kieran is preparing for a cycling challenge organised by the scout troop he and his best mates Simon and Matthew belong to, run by Rob.As he tells the tale, Hodgson, wearing a yellow cycling jersey, hops on and off a static bike, and moves seamlessly among a large cast of vividly realised Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Joseph Morpurgo, Pleasance Courtyard ***** In Soothing Sounds For Baby, Joseph Morpurgo uses found objects - vinyl LPs with content so esoteric you would swear he had invented them - and the framework of Radio 4's Desert Island Discs to fashion an ingenious and wonderful show. Morpurgo is supposedly Kirsty Young's guest on the radio show - although in his painstaking cut and paste clips of the programme, Young's questioning becomes increasingly fractious so we know something is up. Each of his song choices leads into a tableau using a soundscape, visual gags, music, Read more ...