Comedy Features
Best of 2017: ComedyThursday, 28 December 2017
The Edinburgh Fringe is usually the high point of the year for comedy, but in truth it wasn't a solid five-star year – although there were some stand-out performers. Read more... |
Victoria Wood: 'Please could you repeat the question?'Thursday, 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood was a very private national treasure. Not for her the tawdry catwalk of Twitter nor the klaxon of the confessional memoir. She wasn't comfortable talking to journalists and when she found one whom she could just about trust, she stuck with them. Read more... |
Joan Rivers, 1933-2014Friday, 05 September 2014
Age could not wither her, or so it appeared. Joan Rivers has died, aged 81. On her 80th birthday she told an interviewer she’d be celebrating with her eightieth face. Her caustic humour could leave your nerves jangling, but she was the butt of it as often as anyone was. And in the field of cosmetic surgery you could almost call her a lone pioneer, of sorts, for what other American celebrity has ever been as candid about going under the knife? Read more... |
Listed: The laughter and tears of Robin WilliamsTuesday, 12 August 2014
Robin Williams, who has died at the age of 63, was a very American comedian. The flow of invention that erupted from inside him had an unstoppable, domineering, emetic brilliance. In chat shows, performing stand-up, and in his greatest role as a DJ entertaining the troops in Vietnam, he was a not quite human force of nature. Read more... |
theartsdesk at Latitude: Damon Albarn/Booker T JonesTuesday, 22 July 2014
Booker T Jones seduced, his delivery a river of molasses, his beaming smile so suave it was difficult to believe he was, actually, singing the blues. Damon Albarn coaxed, like a well-meaning dad who’s taken his kids on a rainy picnic (a thunderstorm engulfed the end of his set) and wants them, in spite of everything, to have a good time. Lily Allen flounced and stropped; Kelis shook her booty, looking, in a gleaming golden dress, like a queen bee instructing the drones. Read more... |
Opinion: Today's BBC would have rejected Morecambe and WiseMonday, 25 November 2013
A couple of weeks ago I was queueing to get into the BBC’s magnificently revamped HQ at Broadcasting House. Just behind me in the same queue were Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. Their faces are craggier, their hair less confident than when the two comedians became part of the national furniture 20 years ago. And here they were, lightly joshing about the indignity of signing in to enter the offices of the national broadcaster which owes them so much. Read more... |
Mel Smith, 1952-2013Saturday, 20 July 2013
Mel Smith, who has died at the age of 60, will be principally remembered as one quarter of the satirical sketch show Not the Nine O’Clock News and one half of its blokier spin-off Alas Smith and Jones. A natural and inclusive comedian, it’s less widely recalled that Smith also directed one of the most successful films in British movie history: Bean. As co-founder with Griff Rhys Jones of Talkback, he was also a pioneer in independent television production. Read more... |
theartsdesk at the London Comedy Film Festival 2013Thursday, 31 January 2013
Proving that laughter is the only sure-fire cure for the January blues, this year's London Comedy Film Festival took place over four days from Thursday 24th to Sunday 27th January. Known commonly and affectionately as LOCO, it once again showcased the best of comedy filmmaking from around the world, lined-up alongside a range of imaginative events - a programme seemingly designed to give the most depressing month of the year a well deserved kick up the arse. Read more... |
The Glastonbury of the Mind: Hay turns 25Thursday, 31 May 2012
Apart from “I did not have sex with that woman” and maybe “It’s the economy, stupid”, Bill Clinton seems never to have said anything quite as memorable. Indeed, of all the phrases with his name attached, none is quoted quite so tremulously as Clinton's description of an event that takes place annually on the border between England and Wales as May makes way for June. Read more... |
Opinion: Comedy should be taken more seriouslyMonday, 05 March 2012
The first ever work of literary theory was Aristotle's Poetics, which was written on two separate papyruses - one on tragedy and the other on comedy. However, at some point the second was lost and along with it our most ancient understanding of the comedy genre. Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 10,000 pieces, we're asking for £3.95 per month or £30 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take an annual subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
Brockes-Passion, AAM, Egarr, Barbican review - fleshly Hande...
Whips, scourges, sinews, blood and pus: where Bach’s two Passions...
SS Mendi: Dancing the Death Drill, Isango Ensemble, Linbury...
While Bach's and Handel's Passions have been driving thousands to contemplate suffering, mortality and grace, this elegy for black lives lost over...
St Matthew Passion, Ex Cathedra, Skidmore, Symphony Hall Bir...
For the final instalment of their three Matthew Passions this Holy Week, Ex Cathedra gave a large scale performance of Bach’s oratorio in their...
Red Joan review - Judi Dench can't lift lumbering espio...
The decades-long stage relationship between Judi Dench...
Take That, SSE Hydro, Glasgow review - capes and cameos in 3...
This year, says Gary Barlow, marks 30 years since five boys walked into a room in Manchester and auditioned for what...
Climate Change: The Facts, BBC One review - how much reality...
Peer down the glassy dark and you’ll see them. White bubbles trapped in the frozen lake which appear to be rising to the surface. Look through the...
Tommy Tiernan, Shepherd's Bush Empire review - playful...
Tommy Tiernan is something of an institution in his native Ireland, as a...
Loro review – hedonism must have an end
"Them" - the "loro" of the title (with a further play on “l’oro”, gold) - denotes the mostly sleazy opportunists willing to use and be used by "...