standup comedy
Count Arthur Strong, Leeds City Varieties review - stargazing and mangled syntaxFriday, 20 September 2019
Count Arthur Strong, the character created by Steve Delaney, started life in the late 1990s and became a cult figure at the Edinburgh Fringe over several years. Radio shows and three series of a television sitcom (written with Graham Linehan)... Read more... |
Brydon, Mack and Mitchell, Portsmouth Guildhall review - family-friendly funTuesday, 17 September 2019
Rob Brydon, Lee Mack and David Mitchell are the host and team captains respectively of Would I Lie to You?, the long-running BBC One panel game. Now they are touring together in Town to Town, which is family-friendly fun (with occasional naughtiness... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Jordan Brookes/ Catherine CohenSunday, 25 August 2019
Jordan Brookes Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★Jordan Brookes doesn’t tell gags. Well, he does but not in a traditional stand-up way. Rather, his jokes are subtly inserted into I’ve Got Nothing’s seemingly disjointed narrative.Brookes’s previous shows... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Darren McGarvey AKA Loki: Scotland Today / Scottee: ClassTuesday, 13 August 2019
Darren McGarvey AKA Loki: Scotland Today The Stand's New Town Theatre ★★★★★ Darren McGarvey (aka Loki the Scottish Rapper) won the Orwell Prize for political writing in 2018 for his book Poverty Safari, a startling,... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Phil Wang/ London Hughes/ Jack Gleadow/ Mr. ThingTuesday, 13 August 2019
Phil Wang Pleasance Courtyard ★★★Phil Wang used to perform as part of sketch group Daphne, and his new solo show's title, Philly Philly Wang Wang, hints at their sometime schoolboy humour. He starts the standup on the Edinburgh Fringe... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Clive Anderson / GoodbearFriday, 09 August 2019
Clive Anderson Assembly George Square ****Clive Anderson has obeyed the Fringe comedy gods and given his debut solo show a title and a theme. Actually, Me, Macbeth & I is mostly just him talking very amusingly for an hour about his days in the... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Nick Helm/ Just These Please/ Anna DrezenThursday, 08 August 2019
Nick Helm Pleasance Dome ****What a pleasure it is that Nick Helm has returned to the Fringe after six years away after appearing in television comedies Uncle and The Reluctant Landlord.That’s the straightforward reason he has been a stranger... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Josie Long / Snort / Sara BarronTuesday, 06 August 2019
Josie Long The Stand ★★★★ It has been five years since Josie Long performed a full run at the Fringe, and in the meantime she has experienced a momentous event. She has had a daughter – whom she welcomed into the world, she tells us, with an... Read more... |
Robin Ince, Soho Theatre review - fun among the chaosMonday, 15 July 2019
How to describe a show that by Robin Ince’s own admission doesn’t have a narrative strand, and for which he has written several pages of notes that he gets through only a small section of? Well here goes: he calls the show a mash-up of the two... Read more... |
Jerry Seinfeld, Eventim Apollo review - slick and smart but curiously soullessSaturday, 13 July 2019
A Jerry Seinfeld appearance in the UK is an event. For one thing it's rare (he was last here in 2011) and for another he's a comic hero to many for his eponymous sitcom, which he co-created with Larry David.Seinfeld's opening set piece is about... Read more... |
Arthur Smith, Soho Theatre review - charming tribute to his fatherWednesday, 10 July 2019
There has been a trend in stand-up comedy in recent years for intensely personal shows, confessional even, but it’s the comic’s life that is usually the one being examined for comedic effect. With Arthur Smith’s latest show at Soho Theatre, however... Read more... |
Frank Skinner, Leicester Square Theatre - mixing some acid with the charmMonday, 17 June 2019
Frank Skinner walks onstage without introduction and a man in the audience gives him a friendly heckle by way of greeting. Skinner is straight on it, engaging him in a brief conversation; his responses are amiable enough but have a few barbs too.... Read more... |
