thu 07/08/2025

Comedy Reviews

First Night Funnies, Leicester Comedy Festival review - uneven start to 2021's online gathering

Veronica Lee

The Leicester Comedy Festival, always great fun, was one of the last to be able to run fully in 2020, but this year it's not so lucky. Instead of several hundred events in and around Leicester, the 2021 iteration is an online-only version with many fewer shows of Zoom gigs and interviews.

Read more...

Comedy podcasts round-up 3: from home and abroad

Veronica Lee

There's something in the water, as no fewer than three comics are launching podcasts related to the one thing we can't do at the moment – travel. They're having a laugh, aren't they? Other offerings include escapist fun with superheroes, music collections and a spoof true-crime series.

Available on all podcast platforms unless stated

 

Alan Carr's Life's a Beach

Read more...

Back, Channel 4 review - return of sibling-rivalry comedy with Mitchell and Webb

Veronica Lee

It has taken three years for the second series of Back to reach our screens (a combination of the creator being busy, a star being unwell and Covid), but it was worth the wait. To recap for those who didn't see the first series of Simon Blackwell's very dark comedy (now on All4), it concerns Andrew (Robert Webb), who suddenly came back into the life of Stephen (David Mitchell), who is, he says, his long-l

Read more...

Comedy podcasts round-up 2: from home and abroad

Veronica Lee

We're still some way off being able to see live performances in actual clubs and theatres, but here are some more comedy podcasts to keep your laughter quotient healthy in the meanwhile.

Available on all podcast platforms unless stated.

 

Office Ladies

Read more...

Best of 2020: Comedy

Veronica Lee

What a year that was. Live performance was stopped dead in its tracks for most of 2020, and comedy – as viscerally live as you can get in dark and sweaty enclosed spaces above pubs or in club basements – was particularly hard hit. Never again, I suspect, will comedy fans complain about the privations of broom-cupboard venues at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Read more...

Comedy podcasts round-up 1: from home and abroad

Veronica Lee

Podcasts have got many of us through 2020, starved as we have been for most of it of live comedy to leave the house to see. Here's a selection of some of the best; they are available on all podcast platforms unless stated.

Dear Joan & Jericha

Read more...

Natalie Palamides: Nate: A One Man Show, Netflix review - deep dive into toxic masculinity still has power

Veronica Lee

Edgy comedy runs the risk of discomfiting the audience so much that they can't relax and enjoy the show. But Natalie Palamides, appearing as Nate, her alter ego, in Nate: A One Man Show on Netflix, pulls it off, and then some.

Read more...

Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine, Netflix review - star-studded special for Trump lip-syncer

Veronica Lee

When the world was in lockdown and performers turned to TikTok to keep in touch with their fans, Sarah Cooper started using the online platform for short videos where she lip-synced Donald Trump's speeches, and they quickly went global. Not many people can say they owe worldwide fame to Covid and America's worst-ever president.

Read more...

Dear Joan & Jericha review - glorious wrong advice from spoof agony aunts

Veronica Lee

The Dear Joan & Jericha podcast began in 2018, and quickly became a cult hit.

Read more...

Adam Kay, Apollo Theatre review - former medic tells tales from NHS front line

Veronica Lee

What a pleasure it was to step inside a West End theatre again, and what a different experience it was – temperature checks at the door, a one-way system through to the seats and an app to order drinks.

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Good Night, Oscar, Barbican review - sad story of a Hollywoo...

Back in the day, when America’s late-night chat show hosts and their guests sat happily smoking as they shot the breeze for a growing...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Rob Auton / Saaniya Abbas

Rob Auton Assembly Roxy ...

BBC Proms: Láng, Cser, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fis...

“Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night,” quoth Blake. Beethoven and Bartók knew both...

Wilderness Festival 2025 review - seriously delirious escapi...

Wilderness is the kind of festival where you can overhear a conversation about the philosophical implications of rewilding whilst queuing...

Album: Ethel Cain - Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love...

This is a weird one: I do try and stay on top of pop culture, but for several years, Ethel Cain completely passed me by. You’d think I would have...

Weilerstein, NYO2, Payare / Dueñas, Malofeev, Edinburgh Inte...

NYO2 is a group of dazzlingly talented (and terrifyingly young-looking) 14-17 year olds from the USA, one of Carnegie Hall’s three national youth...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Monstering the Rocketman by...

Monstering the Rocketman by Henry Naylor, Pleasance Dome ★...

theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud on sex, lo...

"First love is always both terrible and wonderful at the same time", says the 60-year-Norwegian dramatist-novelist-director...

Oslo Stories Trilogy: Dreams review - love lessons

Rising temperatures, prickling skin, longing’s all-consuming ache: first love’s swooning symptoms overtake 17-year-old Johanne (Ella Øverbye) in...