comedians
Joan Rivers, 1933-2014Friday, 05 September 2014
Age could not wither her, or so it appeared. Joan Rivers has died, aged 81. On her 80th birthday she told an interviewer she’d be celebrating with her eightieth face. Her caustic humour could leave your nerves jangling, but she was the butt of it as... Read more... |
DVD: Cycling with MoliereThursday, 21 August 2014
The sheer joy of making theatre provides the central attraction of Cycling with Moliere (Alceste à bicyclette), but Philippe Le Guay’s film is also rich in the comedy of fractious interaction between old friends whose worlds have moved apart. It’s... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe: Sarah Kendall/Christian O'ConnellMonday, 04 August 2014
Comics rarely start a show by referencing the ending of a previous one, but Sarah Kendall has first to do a bit of housekeeping to explain the genesis of Touchdown. The payoff for her last show was her dropping the c-bomb on her high-school gym... Read more... |
Ariadne auf Naxos, Royal OperaThursday, 26 June 2014
Can it really be 12 years since Antonio Pappano inaugurated his transformative era as the Royal Opera’s Music Director conducting Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos? Christof Loy’s production seemed so radical at the time. We were put off our guard by... Read more... |
The Comedy Vaults: BBC Two's Hidden Treasure, BBC TwoSunday, 11 May 2014
Remember that classic moment from the 1984 sitcom starring the chaps from Madness when their mate suddenly appears and makes them jump? No, of course you don’t, it was never shown, and what a blessing that was judging by a glimpse of it from BBC Two... Read more... |
Two Into One, Menier Chocolate FactoryThursday, 20 March 2014
Political farces always start with a distinct disadvantage — the reality is so much sillier than the fictional version. Never mind, if anyone can make a stage comedy funny it is Ray Cooney, who is not only one of the most entertaining playwrights of... Read more... |
The Walshes, BBC FourFriday, 14 March 2014
Zany Dublin family comprising eccentric parents, neurotic daughter and dozy slacker son prepare to meet daughter's new boyfriend... Sound promising? No not especially, but The Walshes is written by Graham Linehan (with help from the "Diet of Worms"... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, BarbicanTuesday, 11 February 2014
An insider once told me that you get a grant for including puppets in a production. Which may account for the amount of crap puppetry haphazardly applied in the theatre. That certainly can't be said about the work of husband-and-husband team Adrian... Read more... |
Outnumbered, BBC OneWednesday, 29 January 2014
As the Brockman family returns for a fifth and final series of Outnumbered, some viewers will find their hackles standing to attention at the family's extraordinary distillation of middle-class characterstics. There’s the enviable middle-class... Read more... |
House of Fools, BBC TwoWednesday, 15 January 2014
Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's fans recall with huge affection their previous collaborations – among them Big Night Out and The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, two wonderfully anarchic shows. Now comes their first traditional, one-room (well two... Read more... |
KlownSaturday, 07 December 2013
Lest anyone think that the measured performances in Borgen, The Bridge and The Killing or the personal cinema of, say, Susanne Bier, Pernille Fischer Christensen, Lars von Trier or Thomas Vinterberg define Danish drama, along comes the British... Read more... |
Albert Herring, BBCSO, Bedford, BarbicanSunday, 24 November 2013
Three cheers for good old Albert, natural laugh-out-loud heir of Verdi’s Falstaff and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, and the best possible way to mark creator Britten’s being one hundred years and one day old. Youth has its day in both those earlier... Read more... |
