Comedy Reviews
Tom Rosenthal, The Hawth, Crawley review - circumcision made funnyMonday, 09 March 2020
There's nothing you can't joke about, say all stand-up comics, but Tom Rosenthal has entered new territory with Manhood – a riveting and often raucously funny show about his circumcision. He is here, he says, “to avenge the theft of my foreskin”. Read more... |
John Shuttleworth, Leicester Square Theatre review - reflections on life in the slow laneFriday, 06 March 2020
John Shuttleworth walks gingerly on stage and stands with his back to the audience. As he points out, the tour – his first in three years – is called John Shuttleworth's Back, and he's contractually obliged to show the audience his reverse side. Read more... |
Lucy Porter, Quarterhouse, Folkestone review - confessions of an ex-BrownieMonday, 02 March 2020
Scouting and Girlguiding may seem awfully old-fashioned to some, yet many youngsters are still keen to join the Scout movement. Be Prepared (the Scout motto) was inspired by Lucy Porter's two children joining the Beavers, its youngest iteration. Read more... |
Ahir Shah, West End Centre, Aldershot review - a millennial's existential angstFriday, 28 February 2020
Ahir Shah has delivered some very good comedy by performing as a man who knows he is right about everything – that's what a political degree from Cambridge can do for you. Read more... |
Simon Brodkin, The Stables, Milton Keynes review - comics casts off his Lee Nelson characterThursday, 27 February 2020
Simon Brodkin is best known for his cheeky Cockney wideboy character Lee Nelson, and for pranking the famous – notably handing Theresa May her P45 at the Conservative Party conference in 2017, throwing Nazi-themed balls at Donald Trump when he visited his Scottish golf course in 2016, and, in 2015, storming Kanye West's Glastonbury set and showering then Fifa president Sepp Blatter with banknotes. Read more... |
Alexei Sayle, Oxford Playhouse review - return of the political bruiserMonday, 24 February 2020
It has been seven years since Alexei Sayle last toured, with radio shows and books detaining him elsewhere, but he's back with a bang. As he walks on stage, he immediately starts railing about the “Eton boys running the country”; instead of hailing the school for having produced 20 prime ministers, “it should be in special fucking measures.” Oh, we've missed him. Read more... |
Simon Evans, Blackheath Halls review - a big reveal worth waiting forMonday, 17 February 2020
Simon Evans is a comic known for pithy observational humour, and an often acerbic take on politics, with occasional bits of biography thrown in. Read more... |
Jen Brister, Soho Theatre review - parenting, privilege and porn under scrutinyThursday, 13 February 2020
Jen Brister loves her five-year-old twin boys, she is at pains to tell us, even when they have a major meltdown and, like Little Lord Fauntleroys, refuse to eat broken biscuits. Read more... |
David Baddiel, RST, Stratford-upon-Avon review - taking on the trollsMonday, 10 February 2020
David Baddiel is a keen Twitter user, commenting on matters of the day, making witty observations about this and that, or simply chatting to his 650,000 followers. But he does seem to attract trolls, whose idiocy he frequently confronts – and his new show, Trolls: Not the Dolls, was inspired by some of those interactions. Read more... |
Jayde Adams, Soho Theatre review - witty celebrity takedownMonday, 03 February 2020
No more glitzy and glam musical shows for Jayde Adams, the comic tells us at the top of the hour. Now, after a few years in the business, she wants to be taken seriously (or seriously enough to host Crazy Delicious on Channel 4), so the sequinned Spandex has gone into storage – “no more camel toes” – and she's popped on jeans and a black turtleneck. Read more... |
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