Comedy Reviews
Fascinating Aida, London Palladium review - celebrating 40 glorious years of filth and defianceFriday, 09 February 2024
You don’t expect a couple of septuagenarian contraltos, aided by a spring chicken of a soprano in her fifties, to sing naughty ditties about jacksies and titties. Then again, if you are a Fascinating Aida fan, you do. Read more... |
Frank Skinner: 30 Years of Dirt, Gielgud Theatre review - a mature master of class-A smutThursday, 08 February 2024
As the man himself says, he was awarded an MBE last year, despite the dirt, for services to comedy – though which services weren’t specified… On paper that isn’t a remotely risqué remark, but Skinner can milk innuendo from anything that comes out of his mouth. Read more... |
Tatty Macleod, Soho Theatre review - cross-Channel relationsThursday, 11 January 2024
Tatty Macleod, whose debut show is about the differences between the French and the English, has a confession to make: she's not French. She not even half English/half French, despite having lived her life between the two countries. But she's definitely bilingual and, as befits having a foot in both cultures, is well placed to compare her dual countrymen and women. Read more... |
Best of 2023: ComedySaturday, 30 December 2023
From Covid-delayed dates (yes, that's still a thing) to emotional comebacks and assured debuts, 2023 had much to offer. Read more... |
Reuben Kaye, Purcell Room review - Australian gives powerhouse performanceFriday, 22 December 2023
As the panto season is in full swing, theatregoers will be expecting to hear some smut. For those who don't like the traditional artform but still like a bit of filth – with songs – then Reuben Kaye's The Butch Is Back will do nicely. Read more... |
Trevor Noah: Off the Record, O2 review - welcome return to standup for the polyglot motormouthSaturday, 25 November 2023
The O2 has to be the K2 of comedy peaks: a vast ovoid drum of a place where those right at the back have to be content with watching magnified images on screens. And for a standup, there are no electric instruments to drown out the echoing acoustics. Read more... |
Lucy Beaumont, Touring review - Hull’s finest goes on the roadFriday, 10 November 2023
Lucy Beaumont tells some tall stories – many ridiculous and some of them true, one assumes. But such is Beaumont’s wide-eyed delivery that you believe her, particularly if you have seen her on the current series of Taskmaster, where her confused “I don’t know what I thought would happen” approach provides great entertainment. Read more... |
Michael McIntyre, Brighton Centre review - observational everymanMonday, 30 October 2023
It takes some chutzpah to do a substantial section of a comedy show in 2023 (and touring until mid-2024) that deals with your pandemic woes, but that’s Michael McIntyre for you – he has never been short of confidence. Read more... |
John Robins, touring - high anxiety can be funnyFriday, 20 October 2023
Recovery from alcoholism is now standard fare in stand-up comedy; so too are living with ADHD, OCD, depression and anxiety. It's the last of those conditions, combined with becoming sober, that 2017 Edinburgh Comedy Award winner John Robins has fashioned into a striking and affecting show, Howl, which I saw at the Gulbenkian Theatre in Canterbury. Read more... |
Peter Kay, O2 Arena review - comeback show is worth the waitMonday, 18 September 2023
In 2017, Bolton comic Peter Kay had to cancel his planned tour because of “family circumstances”. But then, when he announced last year that he was back in the saddle, the tickets for Better Late Than Never sold like the proverbial. Well into what has mushroomed into a mega tour continuing until 2025, I caught him at the O2 Arena. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Kim's Convenience, Riverside Studios review - KC and th...
One wonders what sitcom writers will do when supermarkets finally sweep the last corner shops away with nobody left old enough to buy...
The Real Ones, Bush Theatre review - engrossing, enjoyable a...
Platonic love should be simple — basically you’re best mates. And without the complications of sex, what could go wrong? Waleed Akhtar, whose big...
Prom 71, Seong-Jin Cho review - refined Romantic journeys
Out of emergencies may come revelations. Sir András Schiff has broken his leg, and we wish him a super-speedy recovery. At the Proms, his promised...
Frang, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - a concerto performanc...
Hauntings, memories, echoes: Antonio Pappano has started his official tenure as chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra by looking back...
The Perfect Couple, Netflix review - an inconvenient death r...
Based on the novel by Elin Hilderbrand, The Perfect...
Lee review - shaky biopic of an iconic photographer
Anyone who has seen Lee Miller’s photographs – those taken of her in the 1920s when she was a dazzling American beauty, those she took as a...
Our Country's Good, Lyric Hammersmith review - lively b...
The latest Greatest Hit to land at the Lyric is Timberlake Wertenbaker’s 1988 award-winning play about a performance of Farquhar’s ...
Why Am I So Single?, Garrick Theatre review - superb songs i...
Going to the theatre can be a little like going to church. One communes on the individual level, one’s faith in the stories...
Reawakening review - a prodigal daughter returns, or does sh...
“I’d know her. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Would I know her? Would I?” John (a brilliant Jared Harris, who’s also an executive producer)...
Album: Floating Points - Cascade
I made a terrible mistake when I first got this LP: I played it on my laptop speakers. That’s not the straight up foolishness you might think,...