Comedy
Would I Lie to You? BBC OneFriday, 23 July 2010
The fact that we humans are, technically speaking, bad liars proves that we are instinctively moral creatures (rather than getting our morals from our god or our parents) and that lying is therefore, evolutionarily speaking, probably a bad idea. You... Read more... |
Latitude Festival, SuffolkTuesday, 20 July 2010
So little time, so much stuff to see: that, in essence, is the story of Latitude. Now in its fifth year, this Suffolk festival offers a bewildering cultural cornucopia: music, theatre, dance, cabaret, comedy, circus, literature, poetry, as well as... Read more... |
Pete and Dud: The Lost Sketches, BBC Two/ British Grand Prix, BBC OneSunday, 11 July 2010
Great comedy may be timeless, but that's probably because of the great comedians performing it as much as the material itself. Could you imagine Dad's Army being anything more than a shadow of its former self if it was remade with a new cast? Would... Read more... |
Rich Fulcher: An Evening with Eleanor, the Tour Whore, Udderbelly, SE1Saturday, 19 June 2010
Fans of The Mighty Boosh may just about recognise Eleanor. The American character comic Rich Fulcher is best known – from that surreal television sitcom – for playing Bob Fossil, the insanely incompetent zoo manager who bemuses Julian Barratt and... Read more... |
Gina Yashere, Udderbelly, SE1Sunday, 13 June 2010
In the game of musical chairs that has led up to their coverage of the soccer World Cup, BBC and ITV executives appear to have missed a trick; judging by last night’s explosive opening few minutes, in which Gina Yashere gave an expletive-laden... Read more... |
Pop-Up Poetry, UdderbellyWednesday, 09 June 2010
Performance poetry, I am told, is the new rock ’n’ roll. Poetry nights may vie with comedy at venues up and down the country, and a new generation of twentysomething urban poets and rappers are certainly strutting their stuff, but I’m yet to be... Read more... |
Pajama Men, Soho TheatreSaturday, 22 May 2010
We must be on the night train, as there's something crazily dreamlike about the Pajama Men's mercurial railroad fantasy, The Last Stand to Reason, which was a runaway Edinburgh Fringe hit last year and is now, deservedly, back at Soho by popular... Read more... |
Idiots of Ants, Soho TheatreTuesday, 18 May 2010
The art of good sketch comedy is in the timing - not just in how gags are delivered, of course, but in realising that some jokes are best done as one-liners while others can be played out over several minutes before being punctuated with a killer... Read more... |
Andy Hamilton, Blackheath HallsSunday, 16 May 2010
Most people know Andy Hamilton from his frequent (and very droll) appearances on panel shows such as Have I Got News For You and The News Quiz on television and radio, but he is also a prolific writer. His writing credits could take up the whole of... Read more... |
Hans Teeuwen, Soho TheatreFriday, 14 May 2010
“You pay money I be funny?” There are times in stand-up when it seems the wrong kind of transaction has taken place. A comedian brings a warped vision of the world to a paying public. He – and the weirder ones are always a he – parade neurosis,... Read more... |
American: The Bill Hicks StoryTuesday, 11 May 2010
If I had a fiver for every time I have heard a comic described (usually by the comic himself) as “the new Bill Hicks”, I would be rather comfortably off. It’s tosh, of course, and, as his brother astutely says in American: The Bill Hicks Story, only... Read more... |
Katy Brand, touringFriday, 30 April 2010
The first time I saw Katy Brand was at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005, where she was performing Celebrities Are Gods in a tiny, windowless basement late at night. Hers was the last show in the room, which by now was a fetid sweatbox, and only a few... Read more... |
