Comedy
Punt and Dennis, The Marlowe, Canterbury review - satire and sketchesSaturday, 25 May 2024
Ten years after their last tour Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis are back on the road with We Are Not a Robot. It comes after their long-running The Now Show on Radio 4 has ended and, reassuringly for their fans, is more of the same affable humour, with... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Billy Connolly - Big Banana FeetTuesday, 21 May 2024
The most striking thing about the 1976 documentary (restored and re-released by the BFI) is just how polite Billy Connolly comes across as. Not that he's impolite now, but the raucous stage presence and vibrant chatshow interviewee was yet to fully... Read more... |
Clinton Baptiste, Touring review - spoof clairvoyant on great formMonday, 20 May 2024
Clinton Baptiste – clairvoyant, medium and psychic – first appeared briefly as a character in Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights on Channel 4. Alex Lowe has since developed him through Clinton Baptiste’s Paranormal Podcast and his live shows, and now he's... Read more... |
Jack Docherty, Soho Theatre review - warm and witty childhood memoirThursday, 16 May 2024
For fans of a certain age the name Jack Docherty will always be associated with a very good run of chat shows on Channel 5; he was also the star of Channel 4's sketch show Absolutely and more recently the Scottish comedy Scot Squad. And now he's on... Read more... |
Rhod Gilbert, G-Live Guildford review - cancer, constipation and celebrity treatmentMonday, 13 May 2024
Rhod Gilbert is disarmingly honest about his thought process when he received his diagnosis of head and neck cancer in 2022. Following quickly from his fears about his possible imminent death, another thought flashed through his mind: “I can get a... Read more... |
Fern Brady, Netflix Special review - sex, relationships and deathMonday, 29 April 2024
An appearance on Taskmaster and the publication of her acclaimed memoir Strong Female Character have helped propel Fern Brady into the comedy big time – and now comes the accolade of her first Netflix special, Autistic Bikini Queen, which was... Read more... |
Jonathan Pie, Duke of York's Theatre review - spoof political reporter takes no prisonersFriday, 19 April 2024
If you don't like sweary comics – Jonathan Pie uses the c-word liberally – then this may not be the show for you. In fact if you're a Tory, ditto, because it is 70 minutes of political invective, taking aim at a rogues' gallery of senior... Read more... |
Spencer Jones: Making Friends, Soho Theatre review - award-winning comedian mines his post-lockdown escape to the countryMonday, 15 April 2024
Lockdown feels more like a dream now: empty streets; bright, scarless skies; pan-banging at 8pm. Did it all happen? One part of our brains insists that it did; another resists such an overthrowing of what it means to be human. Try recalling events... Read more... |
Six Chick Flicks, Leicester Square Theatre review - funny, frenetic and feminist spoofFriday, 12 April 2024
Spoofing movies or movie genres has been done before, but Six Chick Flicks goes the extra mile. It's a funny, frenetic and feminist take-down of the kind of movies that are aimed at woman, but pretty much always written and/or directed by men. It's... Read more... |
Pierre Novellie, Soho Theatre review - turning a heckle into a showTuesday, 02 April 2024
Pierre Novellie opens his show by telling how his latest show, Why Are You Laughing?, came into being. It started, he says, when he was heckled at a previous show by someone shouting out: “I have Asperger's and I think you have it too.” It's an... Read more... |
Catherine Bohart, Soho Theatre review - girlfriends, gossip and gay parenthoodSaturday, 09 March 2024
Catherine Bohart opens by telling us that we're seeing her at the beginning of a long tour – before her energy flags, she says. It's difficult to believe, however, that the Irishwoman ever performs at anything less than full throttle, and so it... Read more... |
Miles Jupp, Cambridge Arts Theatre review - life's vicissitudes turned into laughsTuesday, 05 March 2024
It takes a talented comic to turn a horrible life experience into comedy, but Miles Jupp is nothing if not talented. Add in a bit of self-depreciation, a smidgen of philosophical musing and a dollop of ruderies about bodily functions and you have On... Read more... |
