spoof
edward.seckerson
Since 1982 it’s been open season on the great and the good of Broadway musicals. It was in that very year that a chap called Gerard Alessandrini created Forbidden Broadway and from the hitherto innocuous sidelines of the fringe set out to cut any and everything with ideas above its station down to size. No show, no star was off limits. It was all good clean fun (sort of) but a sense of humour among those targeted was certainly recommended. They tried in vain not to recognise themselves but eventually learned to smile through the pain.On opening night of this now familiar British incarnation Read more ...
emma.simmonds
It might be putting it bluntly, but hell - American rom-coms didn't always suck. The screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s made bickering artful and aspirational and Woody Allen added his own neurotic spin in the 70s. Now the commercial end of the genre makes fools of us all with its desperate women, bland men and rigid, asinine formula. These films are an insult to the intelligent, ambitious or independent, and are at best a guilty pleasure.Modern rom-coms might be a joke but unfortunately they're not a joke with legs, as David Wain's Scary Movie-esque spoof They Came Together shows us over Read more ...
Veronica Lee
If anybody is daft enough to argue that the television licence fee isn't worth it, then just usher them before this superb mockumentary, brought to you by the team behind Twenty Twelve.Now that the Olympics are but a pleasant memory, London 2012 head of deliverance Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville, again mastering the art of suppressed exasperation) has been appointed as head of values at the BBC. It's a job - as David Tennant's languid commentary informs us – that was created in the wake of “recent learning opportunities at the Corporation” (a beautifully subtle reference to the Jimmy Savile Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Jane Bussmann may not be an immediately familiar name to some, but you will know her work. The writer, who was once a celebrity journalist, has been part of the writing teams for South Park, Smack the Pony and Brass Eye, among other quality television comedies, and wrote a hilarious memoir, The Worst Date Ever, about how a reckless whim took her to war-torn Uganda, where she helped unveil the appalling crimes of rebel leader Joseph Kony.She has maintained close links with many she met on her travels and now lives much of the time in Kenya, from where she is well placed to cast a cynical eye Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Rubberbandits embody that modern entertainment industry phenomenon – a huge YouTube hit who have moved into the mainstream with ease. The prankster hip hop duo – Mr Chrome and Blindboy Boatclub (aka Bob McGlynn and Dave Chambers) – have notched up more than 25 million hits online and now routinely sell out their energetic live shows, which they perform as if music gigs.They started life as underground artists, ripping the piss out of Irish culture and politics, and perform with shopping bags over their heads – as if either delinquents keeping their identity secret from the social in their Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Just three Cornettos: the trilogy accidentally named after an ice cream concludes here. Previously in the imaginations of actor Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright, London has been invaded by zombies and a quiet English village by organised crime. In The World’s End, it’s the turn of a faceless Home Counties feeder town to fall under the influence of yet another B movie sub-genre. In this case the local population is replaced by robots (although what precisely constitutes a robot is one of the film’s fun running gags).Is there just a hint of weariness as Pegg, Wright and faithful lumpen co- Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Christopher Guest and his group of players have been responsible for some of the funniest, driest comedy films of the past 30 years, including Waiting For Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind and, of course, his masterpiece This Is Spinal Tap, in which he played the tight-trousered guitarist Nigel Tufnel. Now he's directed and co-created (with Jim Piddock) Family Tree, a US-British sitcom first shown on HBO in America.Like most of Guest's work, the mockumentary sitcom is improvised by the cast and it centres on Irish actor Chris O'Dowd's Tom Chadwick, a 30-year-old unemployed claims assessor Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Anyone who has ever sat through a Las Vegas show – whether in the Nevada desert city or on tour – will instantly recognise the cheesy, overblown nonsense being lampooned throughout this movie. Whether they'll find it as funny is another matter. For while The Incredible Burt Wonderstone has its moments, two thoughts interrupted my viewing enjoyment: one, the big-blown magic shows on the Strip are surely beyond parody; and two, if they are going to send them up, the makers of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone could have done it so much better.But hey, it's funny enough to be getting on with. We Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It can't be often that producers are faced with the agreeable problem of trying to shoehorn in several talents when devising a debut solo vehicle for a stand-up making the transition to television entertainer, but Hit the Road Jack's makers had that challenge with Jack Whitehall. Can he do jokes, spoof sketches and documentary-style pieces, followed by a bit of Candid Camera-like comedy, then chat-show banter with a celebrity guest? Yes all of that, most of which he makes a decent fist of.Following hot on the heels of Sarah Millican, Whitehall has been launched on to our screens with his Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Those of a certain age will remember the television series 21 Jump Street, a huge hit for the then fledgling Fox network in America. It ran from 1987 to 1991 and starred Johnny Depp. The titular address was where he worked as an undercover cop, one of a team of youthful officers investigating crimes in high schools and colleges. Jonah Hill, who at 28 is far too young to have watched the original but no doubt caught one of its many reruns, is a fan and has now co-written, co-produced and stars in the film version.It may seem like a vanity project but it's actually an amusing venture: part Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Sam Simmons, Gilded Balloon **** Sam Simmons clocks a young girl in the front row and stops the show. “How old are you?” the Aussie comic asks. “Ten,” comes the reply, and he suggests to her mother that this may not be the show for them, so they leave. And just in good time, as what follows is a load of cock and balls as Simmons is dressed in vest and pants which, after he is drenched during a gag, become increasingly, er, figure-hugging.Sam Simmons clocks a young girl in the front row and stops the show. “How old are you?” the Aussie comic asks. “Ten,” comes the reply, and he suggests Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Chris Lilley may not be a household name, but he is well known to comedy connoisseurs. The Australian's work, which he writes, produces and appears in - in several roles, male and female, adult and teenager - is exceptional, and is by turns funny and challenging, offensive and poignant. You may have seen We Can Be Heroes, about teenage identical twins Daniel and Nathan (played by Lilley), and Summer Heights High, set in a secondary school where the egregious fool Mr G taught drama to the self-obsessed Ja’mie (both played by Lilley); now comes Angry Boys, about young men in modern society. Read more ...