Comedy

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

Friday, 31 January 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...

Ben Elton, Duke of York's Theatre review - big subjects, big laughs

Monday, 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...

Chris McCausland, Winchester Theatre Royal review - Strictly winner as cheerfully cynical as ever

Thursday, 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...

Gala Preview Show, De Montfort Hall review - Leicester Comedy Festival nicely teed up

Monday, 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...

Best of 2024: Comedy

Monday, 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...

Jamie Foxx, Netflix Special review - doctors and divine intervention

Friday, 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,...

Ricky Gervais, Touring review - new show, not-so new gags

Thursday, 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...

Kemah Bob, Soho Theatre review - Thailand, massage and mental health

Wednesday, 20 November 2024

Kemah Bob is a regular on television and radio panel shows and well established on the comedy circuit, but Miss Fortunate is her full-length debut. And what a debut; a personal story – ostensibly about the holiday from hell – that manages to riff on...

Natalie Palamides: Weer, Soho Theatre review - a romcom of two halves

Tuesday, 12 November 2024

Natalie Palamides doesn't do things by halves. Actually, the Los Angeles-based clown does just that in her inventive new show Weer – a hit at the Traverse Theatre at this year's Edinburgh Fringe – in which she plays the male and female...

Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Brighton Dome review - a foster carer's tale

Monday, 28 October 2024

Kiri Pritchard-McLean has spoken on stage before about her interest in helping young people – including in her 2017 show, Appropriate Adult, in which she talked about being a mentor to a vulnerable youngster. In Peacock, her latest...

Rose Matafeo, Arcola Theatre review - Starstruck star muses on love

Monday, 14 October 2024

Rose Matafeo knows how to make an entrance, as she enters the stage with a choreographed dance. She's useless at ending things, she says – shows, relationships – so she's going to start On and On and On with something memorable. She doesn't...

Ellen DeGeneres, Netflix Special review - no mea culpa and few jokes

Tuesday, 08 October 2024

Hard to imagine it now, but just a few years ago Ellen DeGeneres was one of America’s biggest daytime TV stars; her chatshow The Ellen DeGeneres Show attracted Hollywood stars and politicians and she was paid millions for it. But then, in 2022, it...

Comedy

Doormat Navigation