standup comedy
Veronica Lee
Ania Magliano, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★ When Ania Magliano made her Fringe debut last year, her show was rightly garlanded with four- and five-star reviews. She sounded like an original voice on the comedy scene and this year her show, I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This, sold out its entire run before the festival opened.An hour that is ostensibly about the comic’s worst haircut doesn’t sound enthralling, but of course it works both as metaphor about overcoming adversity and a structure for the comedy as Magliano talks about her recovery from a sexual assault.She uses the hairdresser’s lack of Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Ed Byrne Assembly Rooms ★★★★★ Ed Byrne has frequently referenced his loved ones in previous shows but this new hour is one he would never wanted to have written, as it was prompted by the death of his younger brother, Paul, last year. Its title, Tragedy Plus Time, is taken from an aphorism attributed to Mark Twain about the definition of humour.But this is no misery memoir, far from it – Byrne is too talented a comic for that, and it’s a gag-filled hour, albeit one that deals with death and its impact. Byrne also poses some questions about the nature of sibling love and rivalry, and the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It's takes a confident comic performing only her second show in English – her second language – to joke near the top of the hour: “I didn't know I wasn't as funny in English.” Urooj Ashfaq also told us she would get upset if the audience didn't like her – but she shouldn't worry. Her confidence proved to be justified.Ashfaq performed her enjoyable UK debut Oh No! in London as a preview for her first run at the Edinburgh Fringe this month. It's an hour of storytelling about her life, family, dating and the things she likes. And some of the things she dislikes.This sort of material could Read more ...
Gary Naylor
At first, it’s hard to believe that the true story of Colonel Blood’s audacious attempt to steal The Crown Jewels from the Tower of London in 1671 has not provided the basis for a play before. After two hours of Simon Nye’s pedestrian telling of the tale as a comedy, you have your answer.We open on a lover of the King who regales us in song – since it’s Carrie Hope Fletcher (this production is not short of star quality), we can forgive the tinny piped-in music and enjoy her tremendous singing voice. The character returns a couple of times but (and this is a recurring theme in a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Josh Pugh made quite an impression at last year's Edinburgh Fringe, where he was deservedly nominated for best show in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards with Sausage, Egg, Josh Pugh, Chips and Beans. In this special YouTube version, recorded at Birmingham Town Hall, he reprises that performance.It's an accomplished, warm-hearted hour of observational comedy about this and that, much of it drawing attention to Pugh's hapless persona and the scrapes he gets into – such as accidentally grooming a ripped Serbian teenage kickboxer, or ruining his wife's dinner because he became distracted by finding out Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Amy Schumer opens Emergency Contact, her latest Netflix Special, by asking a young woman in the front row how old she is. When the answer comes back as “27”, the New York comic has found the perfect segue into material about being 42 and feeling her age.It’s anything but quotidian though as Schumer is a wry – and often very sharp – observer of the human condition. Indeed her material about actor Alec Baldwin and his “not-Spanish Spanish” wife, Hilaria (christened Hilary) is deliciously pointed in reflecting on identity and self-awareness, or lack of it.Most of the show – derived Read more ...
Veronica Lee
John Kearns' comedy is what you might call niche; absurdist, surrealist, poetic – they all apply, underlined by his onstage uniform, or “mask”, of tonsure wig and oversize false teeth. But last year he took part in something very definitely mainstream – Channel 4’s Taskmaster – and knows that some in the audience are here to see not the performer who won best newcomer and best show in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards in successive years (2013 and 2014), but the sweet, giggly comic seemingly incapable of lateral thinking, the contestant destined for last place. (Actually he came third.)Learns Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Phil Wang has an interesting background: he has a Chinese-Malaysian father and a white English mother, was born in the UK, and spent his childhood in Malaysia before returning to the UK at 16. His comedy has always mined this rich seam, and now in his latest touring show, Wang in There, Baby!, he mines it a bit more with his opening gags.First up is a discussion about rice, and very informative it is too, as he discusses the different positions English and Chinese people take on it – and what you're really eating when you order fried rice in a restaurant. There's more food-related material as Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Hannah Gadsby had a memorable lockdown; it was when the Tasmanian comic got together with producer Jenney Shamash. And it's their courtship that forms the basis for Something Special, the wonderful new show by Gadsby which is now a Netflix special, recorded at the Sydney Opera House.Gadsby, whose previous shows have dealt with some pretty serious subjects, including rape, homophobia and misogyny, tells us drily at the top of the hour: “This is going to be a feelgood show. I feel I owe you one.”And yes, it is indeed a feelgood show (based on the previously toured Body of Work). Essentially, Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Emmanuel Sonubi burst on the scene at last year's Edinburgh Fringe, where he was nominated in the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and has since appeared on the BBC's Live at the Apollo and supported Jason Manford on tour. It's easy to see why he's broken through; the north Londoner is an instantly engaging presence on stage, with a cheeky conversational style that draws the audience in.He is now touring that nominated show, Emancipated. Its title appears to have little to do with the (at times scattergun) everyday material about parenting, being humiliated by a teaching assistant, Read more ...
Veronica Lee
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 comic. First, though, he sets it up. Not by talking about the Oscars kerfuffle per se – although he tells us “Anyone who says words hurt has never been punched in the face” – but by cheeky asides that let us know Rock is leading us there. He references Snoop Dog and Jay-Z; he’s not dissing them, he’s at pains to make clear, Read more ...
Veronica Lee
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 at that.She makes a persuasive case, setting out the downsides first. The hot flushes, obviously. The brain fog, the irregular periods – with the occasional “passata tsunami” – but mostly how it heralds invisibility for middle-aged women.But then, gradually, she builds her case to suggest that this is actually a great time in a woman’s life. If Read more ...