Comedy
Adam Riches Is The Guy Who..., Drink, Shop & Do review - super-suave Lothario on the prowlThursday, 07 February 2019
The first line of this show is “I'm the guy who you meet right after you come out of a long-term relationship.” On the night I see The Guy Who..., Adam Riches has three tries with it before he meets his target, a woman who has been dumped by a... Read more... |
Lost Voice Guy, Soho Theatre review - Britain's Got Talent winner finds the funny in disabilityMonday, 28 January 2019
Lost Voice Guy – aka Lee Ridley – won Britain’s Got Talent last year. He's a unique talent in that his cerebral palsy means he is unable to speak, and so he delivers his comedy through a synthesizer controlled via his iPad.If you saw him on BGT, you... Read more... |
Daniel Sloss, Leicester Square Theatre review - toxic masculinity examinedMonday, 21 January 2019
Daniel Sloss's latest show is called X, to denote his 10th show. The Scottish comic started in comedy as a teenager in 2009 when a lot of his material was knob and wank gags, but in recent years his work has had a progressively edgier feel,... Read more... |
James Acaster, Phoenix Theatre review - a masterclass in comedyWednesday, 16 January 2019
There's a story in James Acaster's superb new show at the Phoenix Theatre which hangs on him being the first UK comic to shoot several Netflix specials. He doesn't tells us this to boast; far from it. It's to set up another long-form gag, one of... Read more... |
Leicester Comedy Festival Gala Preview Show review - an entertaining mixed bagMonday, 14 January 2019
Suited and booted, Tom Allen and Suzi Ruffell presented this gala preview to the Leicester Comedy Festival, which is now in its 26th year and starts next month. The comics, who do an occasional podcast together called Like Minded, make an engaging... Read more... |
The Catherine Tate Show Live, Wyndham's Theatre review - sketch show favourites on stageWednesday, 09 January 2019
In 2016 Catherine Tate performed live comedy for the first time since her Edinburgh Fringe days at the beginning of her career, and the show was deservedly both a critical and box-office success. She later took it to Australia and New Zealand and... Read more... |
Best of 2018: ComedyFriday, 28 December 2018
The highlight of 2018 for me was the return of two mighty sets of talents – Flight of the Conchords and The League of Gentlemen – and it was heartwarming to see that they had lost none of their sharpness, wit or love of performing in front of a live... Read more... |
Hari Kondabolu, Soho Theatre review - from politics to papayasWednesday, 05 December 2018
As openings go, the first night of Hari Kondabolu's standup residency at Soho Theatre was pretty memorable, so get to American Hour in good time as he is trying to pull off the same trick when he can (no spoilers, but it involves quite a bit of... Read more... |
Matt Forde, Purcell Room review - politics plus deft impressionsMonday, 03 December 2018
You might think that, given the upheaval we are living through, political comics would be 10 a penny but, surprisingly, they’re thin on the ground. Regardless of how any rivals he has, though, Matt Forde is surely the outstanding political comic... Read more... |
Dave Gorman, Royal Festival Hall review - PowerPoint king is back with biteTuesday, 27 November 2018
Anyone who has seen a previous Dave Gorman show or his television series Modern Life Is Goodish knows what to expect: a show that's part lecture, part conversation, all pedantry, done with the aid of a PowerPoint presentation – clicker, laptop and... Read more... |
Natalie Palamides, Soho Theatre - challenging show about consentFriday, 16 November 2018
The #MeToo movement is barely a year old, but it is already prompting some clever and insightful comedy – from standalone jokes or set-pieces in several comics’ shows, or, here, a very funny but frequently discomfiting hour that delves deep into the... Read more... |
Ayesha Hazarika, Soho Theatre review - feminism examinedMonday, 29 October 2018
As a former adviser to Harriet Harman and Ed Miliband – and a woman who has put her name forward to be a Labour Party candidate at a Westminster election – Ayesha Hazarika certainly knows her politics from the inside. So a show with the title Girl... Read more... |
