tue 29/07/2025

Comedy Reviews

Frank Skinner: 30 Years of Dirt, Gielgud Theatre review - a mature master of class-A smut

Helen Hawkins

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.

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Tatty Macleod, Soho Theatre review - cross-Channel relations

Veronica Lee

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.

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Best of 2023: Comedy

Veronica Lee

From Covid-delayed dates (yes, that's still a thing) to emotional comebacks and assured debuts, 2023 had much to offer.

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Reuben Kaye, Purcell Room review - Australian gives powerhouse performance

Veronica Lee

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.

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Trevor Noah: Off the Record, O2 review - welcome return to standup for the polyglot motormouth

Helen Hawkins

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.

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Lucy Beaumont, Touring review - Hull’s finest goes on the road

Veronica Lee

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.

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Michael McIntyre, Brighton Centre review - observational everyman

Veronica Lee

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.

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John Robins, touring - high anxiety can be funny

Veronica Lee

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.

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Peter Kay, O2 Arena review - comeback show is worth the wait

Veronica Lee

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.

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Kate Berlant Is KATE, Soho Theatre review - glorious spoof of actory types

Veronica Lee

The show begins before the audience troops into the theatre; the walls of the staircase leading to it are plastered with images of Kate Berlant, its writer and performer; we file past her (sitting by the doorway with a sign saying “Ignore me”) and a long word-salad statement by her; and then, before she appears, we watch a film on the onstage screen in which – in arty black-and-white, quoting Stanislavsky and Oscar Wilde – Berlant preens and pouts and Looks Very Serious.

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