Comedy Reviews

Isy Suttie, Touring

Veronica Lee Tuesday, 23 February 2016

Isy Suttie, an ever-smiling and engaging stand-up, may come across as a real-life version of Dobby, the perpetually nice character she played in Peep Show, but that's somewhat to deceive.

Stewart Francis, Pavilion Theatre, Worthing

Thomas H Green Monday, 22 February 2016

Before Canadian comedian and British TV panel show regular Stewart Francis arrives on stage his audience are entertained with his one-panel cartoons. These, Sharpie-penned in black, are projected as a slideshow (sample: in a fishbowl, one fish says to the other, “It’s all kicked off again in the Middle East” – title “Topical Fish”).

Reeves & Mortimer, Leicester De Montfort Hall

Veronica Lee Friday, 05 February 2016

Even if the evening had turned out to be rubbish, there was always going to be a warm welcome for Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's return to live performance with 25 Years of Reeves & Mortimer: The Poignant Moments. Aside from the obvious room for nostalgia, Mortimer almost didn't make it; this tour could start only after he had emergency triple bypass surgery last year.

Comment

Dave Gorman, Touring

Veronica Lee Wednesday, 27 January 2016

Dave Gorman was probably the first comic to have embraced technology in his stand-up. Albeit, in the early days, it was using 35mm slides, hand-drawn graphs and an overhead projector, but then latterly a computer and the ever-more influential Internet and social media. And so, as is a feature at all his shows, there's a large screen on stage when I see him at the Royal Festival Hall and when he says: “I've put it on a graph” there's a loud cheer of recognition from the audience.

Eddie Izzard, Palace Theatre

Veronica Lee Friday, 22 January 2016

Eddie Izzard tells us at the top of a show lasting two-and-a-half hours that he's on the home straight in a mammoth tour taking in 28 countries. He first performed Force Majeure in 2013 and now, in a slightly rebooted form, he parks it in the West End for an extended run as Force Majeure Reloaded.

Anne Edmonds, Soho Theatre

Veronica Lee Friday, 08 January 2016

When Anne Edmonds comes on stage I notice a banjo sitting ominously in a corner. She is full of Australian bonhomie and energy, instantly connecting with the audience, and our first impression is that she's a likeable chatterbox, telling anecdotes without punchlines - and she begins with a lengthy one about spewing copiously on a New Year's Day flight in front of her parents some years ago.

Bill Bailey, Vaudeville Theatre

Veronica Lee Saturday, 12 December 2015

What a trouper Bill Bailey is. Just as he's introducing what is clearly meant to be a showstopper in which he and the audience would create a number in the style of “maestro of melancholia” Moby, his technology lets him down. But no fear, Bailey ad libs for several minutes as he tries to rectify the problem, knocks out an Irish reel on one of the many instruments on stage, and moves on when it's clear that the “Moby song" will have to remain unsung.

Ed Byrne, Theatre Royal, Winchester

Veronica Lee Wednesday, 25 November 2015

The show's title, Outside, Looking In, might suggest we're in for some philosophising from Ed Byrne – but then, after 22 years in the business, the Irish observational comic has earned the right. And indeed, he covers subjects such as feminism, slut-shaming and gender imbalance, but in the mix there is also some material about the perils of dating and a graphic description of food poisoning.

Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, Eventim Apollo

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 17 November 2015

Loadsamoney stomps on clutching a wad of twenties. He hasn’t been seen since the Eighties, he advises, because he became irrelevant. In the strict sense Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse have never been relevant. Relevant comedy has a habit of becoming irrelevant, which is why their Legends! tour is such a treat for audiences over a certain age.

Dawn French, Vaudeville Theatre

Jasper Rees Friday, 13 November 2015

When is a comedian not funny? Dawn French has spent so much of her life making audiences laugh that her debut as a one-woman performer requires some recalibration. The next-door smile is as big as ever, and the eagerness to be liked, so the early section – about the thieving march of time – looks and sounds like a stand-up routine that isn’t quite landing. Laughs are thin on the ground.

inside comedy

latest in today

Coote, LSO, Tilson Thomas, Barbican review - the triumph of...

Programme notes for Mahler’s monumental symphonies will often...

Conchúr White, St Pancras Old Church review - side-stepping...

If there’s a feeling of déjà vu, it isn’t detectable. Conchúr White played St Pancras Old Church in April 2016 with County Armagh’s Silences, the...

Our Mothers review - revisiting the horrors of Guatemala...

Director Cesar Diaz’s debut feature film was...

Rhod Gilbert, G-Live Guildford review - cancer, constipation...

Rhod Gilbert is disarmingly honest about his thought process when he received his diagnosis of head and neck cancer in 2022. Following quickly...

Pop Will Eat Itself, Chalk, Brighton review - hip hop rocker...

By midway, things are cooking. “Can U Dig It?”, a post-modern list-song from another age (Ok,...

Album: Beth Gibbons - Lives Outgrown

It’s been a long while since Beth Gibbons released an album. Portishead’s Third was out in 2008. She has lived through so many...

$Refracted light: the Britten Sinfonia gives the European premiere of Lisa Illean's arcing, stilling, bending, gathering$ Britten Sinfonia, The Marian Consort, Milton Court review -...

Gesualdo was, in the words of New Yorker critic Alex Ross – “irrefutably badass”, a double murderer, sado-masochist and black magic enthusiast who...