Comedy
Help to give theartsdesk a future!Wednesday, 01 October 2025
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.It followed some hectic and intensive months when a disparate and eclectic team of arts and culture writers went ahead with an ambitious plan – to... Read more... |
Matt Forde, Touring review - politics, poo and ViagraSaturday, 08 March 2025
Matt Forde gives a warning: “Don’t heckle the disabled – that’s a hate crime.” What an opener for his latest touring show, The End of an Era, which I saw at the Oxford Glee Club. To explain: in 2023 the back pain that Forde thought was sciatica... Read more... |
Harry Hill, Wilton's Music Hall review - madcap comic on terrific formMonday, 24 February 2025
Harry Hill reminds us at one point during his latest touring show that he’s 60, but there’s no let-up in the energy he brings to New Bits and Greatest Hits, a pleasing mixture of old and new material showing he still packs a punch on stage.... Read more... |
Nina Conti: Whose Face Is It Anyway?, Brighton Dome review - a melee of jubilant spontaneityMonday, 10 February 2025
“I really am the repository for all your shit,” Nina Conti’s famous Monkey hand puppet tells her. Monkey may have a point.The brilliance of Conti’s ventriloquism is that it seems to burst, unedited, from her id. Filth, surrealism and lightning-fast... Read more... |
Amy Gledhill, Soho Theatre review - delightfully bawdy take on serious subjectsMonday, 03 February 2025
At the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe, Amy Gledhill won best show for Make Me Look Fit on the Poster, ostensibly a cheery collection of stories about the weird and wonderful things that happen to her. But under the guise of feelgood comedy with herself as... Read more... |
Russell Howard Live at the Palladium review - feelgood philosophy with added smutWednesday, 29 January 2025
This special, available for a limited time only, acts as a sort of appetiser for the next leg of a mega tour that started in 2023, and still has some months to run. The comic played 13 nights in London on the UK leg and the hour-long Russell Howard... Read more... |
Ben Elton, Duke of York's Theatre review - big subjects, big laughsMonday, 20 January 2025
Ben Elton loves a scrap. The Motormouth of yesteryear, who made his name attacking Margaret Thatcher and her policies (and being attacked by the right in turn) now wades into so many frothing hot topics – gender politics, assisted dying and the age... Read more... |
Chris McCausland, Winchester Theatre Royal review - Strictly winner as cheerfully cynical as everThursday, 16 January 2025
By all accounts Chris McCausland had to be persuaded to take part in the most recent series of Strictly Come Dancing, which he won with his professional partner Diane Buswell. It would be a commendable achievement for any non-dancer, but for a blind... Read more... |
Gala Preview Show, De Montfort Hall review - Leicester Comedy Festival nicely teed upMonday, 13 January 2025
Europe's biggest comedy festival, which showcases established stars, works in progress, workshops and competitions, kicks off next month, and this gala show certainly whetted our appetites for its 700-plus events. It was hosted by the nimble-witted... Read more... |
Best of 2024: ComedyMonday, 30 December 2024
Looking back over the past 12 months, it struck me how it has been the shows fashioned from personal stories that have stayed with me. It wasn't simply that the comics could make very good jokes about their travails or embarrassments, but that the... Read more... |
Jamie Foxx, Netflix Special review - doctors and divine interventionFriday, 27 December 2024
In April 2023 the actor and comic Jamie Foxx had a stroke and was lucky to survive. In his latest Netflix Special, What Had Happened Was... he tells us about it, and his recovery. It's fitting, he tells us, that the show was recorded in Atlanta,... Read more... |
Ricky Gervais, Touring review - new show, not-so new gagsThursday, 05 December 2024
Ricky Gervais begins by bringing us up to date with the latest “outrage” he has caused; two Netflix specials, SuperNature and Armageddon, upset some people, he tells us, thus giving them even more attention than they might otherwise have had. So now... Read more... |
- 1 of 61
- ››
