Comedy Reviews

Bridget Christie, Brighton Festival review - politics through a domestic lens

Veronica Lee Monday, 21 May 2018

Bridget Christie tells us at the top of the show that she is a heterosexual, able-bodied, privileged white female – so why is she feeling so discontented?

Sarah Kendall, Soho Theatre review - a superb storyteller

Veronica Lee Thursday, 17 May 2018

For her past few shows, Sarah Kendall's stock in trade has been intricately crafted stories that mix fact and fiction, drawing on her childhood in Newcastle, New South Wales, and observations about the world she now lives in.

Danny Baker, Touring review - boy, can he talk

Veronica Lee Friday, 11 May 2018

The first thing that greets the audience in the foyer for Danny Baker's new show, Good Time Charlie's Back!, which I saw at Princes Hall in Aldershot, is the merchandise stall, selling various items; T-shirts for £20, programmes at £10 (pre-signed!), and mugs for £8.

Comment

Shazia Mirza, Touring review - race and politics examined

Veronica Lee Monday, 30 April 2018

With Love from St Tropez was inspired by Shazia Mirza's visit to a beach in the south of France that had a nudist beach nearby – and it was just before the French government's ban on burkinis.

Flo and Joan, Soho Theatre review - sisters in satirical harmony

Veronica Lee Tuesday, 24 April 2018

Flo and Joan are sisters (Nicola and Rosie Dempsey: they have borrowed their stage names from their nan and her sister) and you may have recently seen them on television doing advertisements for Nationwide. Others may know them from social media, and their runaway hit “The 2016 Song” about music fans' annus horribilis with the deaths of David Bowie and Prince.

Ed Byrne, Touring review - the perils of modern fatherhood

Veronica Lee Monday, 23 April 2018

Ed Byrne is a worried parent. Thankfully his two young sons are hale and hearty, but he is concerned he may be bringing up a pair of pampered, Lord Fauntleroy youngsters, and in Spoiler Alert he ponders the differences between his experience of being parented as a child in the 1980s, and now being a dad himself.

Angela Barnes, Soho Theatre review - history with great gags

Veronica Lee Thursday, 19 April 2018

It's always nice to come away from a show having learned something and Angela Barnes, history buff and a woman with an obsession some may consider weird (more of which later), certainly fills in a lot of historical detail in Fortitude.

Daliso Chaponda, Touring review - uneven but entertaining

Veronica Lee Monday, 16 April 2018

You may have seen Daliso Chaponda on Britain's Got Talent last year. He came third but, as he says, he was delighted as it brought him to a wider audience after working in comedy for 15 years – and made possible his first UK tour What the African Said.

Score review - breathless dash through music and film

David Kettle Thursday, 05 April 2018

The crucial yet almost indefinable role of music in film – it’s a subject ripe for exploration and celebration, from the musicological technicalities of leitmotifs and ostinatos, through to the colourful characters working to bring directors’ sometimes vague musical notions to sonic reality. All of which gets raced through in this jam-packed documentary by first-time director Matt Schrader, a...

Simon Evans, Soho Theatre review - intellect examined

Veronica Lee Friday, 23 March 2018

Simon Evans, at 52, is far too young to be a grumpy old man, but he’s doing his best to prepare for the role, with this amusingly dyspeptic standup show at Soho Theatre about the ageing process, and how the evolutionary model appears to be moving backwards.