Comedy Reviews

Michelle Wolf: Joke Show, Netflix review - edgy and original material

Veronica Lee Monday, 30 March 2020

Michelle Wolf, best known to UK audiences as the comic who upset Donald Trump with some smart barbs aimed at his staff at the 2018 White House Correspondents' Dinner, has done some occasional dates this side of the pond (plus a run at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe), so her fans will be grateful for Joke Show...

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Shappi Khorsandi, Soho Theatre On Demand - enjoyable run-through of her career

Veronica Lee Monday, 23 March 2020

Shappi Khorsandi's latest show, Skittish Warrior – Confessions of Club Comic, is an enjoyable look back at the stand-up's 20 years in the comedy business. She starts by taking us back to when she was child refugee; her father, a poet and satirist, offended the clerics in Iran, and was even the target of an assassination gang in London.

Steve Martin and Martin Short, SSE Hydro Glasgow review - old friends bring a touch of vaudeville

Veronica Lee Tuesday, 10 March 2020

Steve Martin and Martin Short first met in 1986 on the set of The Three Amigos (in which they co-starred with Chevy Chase), became fast friends and have since worked on a few projects together. In what was quite a coup for the Glasgow Comedy Festival, the first night of their UK tour was a starry curtain-raiser to the festival proper, which starts on Thursday.

Tom Rosenthal, The Hawth, Crawley review - circumcision made funny

Veronica Lee Monday, 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”.

John Shuttleworth, Leicester Square Theatre review - reflections on life in the slow lane

Veronica Lee Friday, 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.

Lucy Porter, Quarterhouse, Folkestone review - confessions of an ex-Brownie

Veronica Lee Monday, 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.

Ahir Shah, West End Centre, Aldershot review - a millennial's existential angst

Veronica Lee Friday, 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.

Simon Brodkin, The Stables, Milton Keynes review - comics casts off his Lee Nelson character

Veronica Lee Thursday, 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.

Alexei Sayle, Oxford Playhouse review - return of the political bruiser

Veronica Lee Monday, 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.