standup comedy
Chris Rock, Netflix special review - no holds barred on the Oscars slapFriday, 17 March 2023
Chris Rock knows how to tease. It’s a safe bet that many watching this show are here for one thing – to hear his version of events that took place at last year’s Oscars, when actor and erstwhile rapper Will Smith came on stage and slapped the... Read more... |
Bridget Christie, The Haymarket, Basingstoke review - making the menopause funnyTuesday, 07 March 2023
Bridget Christie is hot. Not in that way, you mucky pups. She’s hot because she’s 51 and menopausal, she tells us – and she’s on a mission to explain why, rather than marking a negative moment in her life, it’s the start of a new age, and a good one... Read more... |
Ricky Gervais, BIC review - nudging the boundaries againMonday, 27 February 2023
Ricky Gervais tells us at the top of the show that there was a backlash to his 2022 Netflix special SuperNature. So big, he says, that it’s become the most watched comedy special of the year. “So I’ve learnt my lesson,” he says with a side-eye to... Read more... |
Catherine Cohen, Brighton Komedia review - songs and New York sassThursday, 09 February 2023
Catherine Cohen made quite an impact at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe, where she won best newcomer in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for The Twist? She's Gorgeous. Global events have delayed her follow-up and a UK debut tour, but here it is, and Come For... Read more... |
Lucy Porter, Cambridge Junction review - making light of a midlife crisisMonday, 23 January 2023
A lot has been happening in Lucy Porter’s life since she last toured. The pandemic we all know about, so she doesn’t detain us to recount her lockdown woes; they get merely tangential mentions in Wake Up Call as she talks about more recent events... Read more... |
Alex Edelman, Menier Chocolate Factory review - London run for unmissable off-Broadway hitSaturday, 21 January 2023
At one point in this brilliantly constructed and performed set, Alex Edelman ponders on the catchment area for his comedy and figures it might be the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Nah: this is comedy that can talk to anybody with a brain. ... Read more... |
Best of 2022: ComedyFriday, 30 December 2022
In 2022 we were finally able to welcome back the first “proper” Edinburgh Fringe since 2019. While I was disappointed that a few established comics – they know who they are – hadn't used the enforced layoff from live comedy to, you know, write new... Read more... |
10 Questions for comedian Alex EdelmanMonday, 19 December 2022
US comic Alex Edelman first came to the attention of British audiences in 2014, when he was named best newcomer in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for his show Millennial, in which, said one critic, “he regales us with tales of smart-arsery and backchat... Read more... |
Tom Ward, Brighton Komedia review - offbeat observational gagsMonday, 12 December 2022
Tom Ward does his audience research at the top of the show, asking fairly mundane questions about their ages and where they live before he poses an unexpectedly pointed “Who is in an open relationship?” It's the beat before “They're aware of...”... Read more... |
Sara Pascoe, Assembly Hall, Tunbridge Wells review - motherhood and the perils of fameFriday, 25 November 2022
Sara Pascoe comes on stage to tell us there has been a small wardrobe malfunction. She's made an effort and is wearing something glitzy, but it restricts her movement in one direction and gives too much in another. Should she go and change into... Read more... |
Jerry Sadowitz, Eventim Apollo review - brilliantly darkFriday, 18 November 2022
If anyone in the audience at the Eventim Apollo was expecting Jerry Sadowitz to rein things in after the spot of bother he ran into at the Edinburgh Fringe in August, then they were quickly disabused.The Pleasance had cancelled the second of two... Read more... |
Helen Bauer, Soho Theatre review - rollicking show about how to be a modern womanSaturday, 05 November 2022
Confidence, says Helen Bauer, is a good thing. As a woman who casts herself as the leading lady in any situation, including funerals, she has oodles of it – as well as bucketloads of energy in a show that starts with a declaration of intent: “I'm... Read more... |
