Comedy
Udderbelly London 2012 opensMonday, 09 April 2012The giant inflatable cow is open for business on London's South Bank and continues until 8 July. Many of the comedy, cabaret and circus gigs on its schedule are previews of shows going to the Edinburgh Fringe and among those appearing are Tim... Read more... |
Benet Brandreth, Soho TheatreFriday, 30 March 2012
Storytelling, they say, is an almost lost art. Well, not while Benet Brandreth is around, it's not. Brandreth, Sandhurst graduate and a lawyer by day, studied Philosophy at Cambridge and has packed rather a lot into his life, real or imagined. He... Read more... |
theASHtray: Douglas Adams, the petty tyranny of Saul Zaentz Co., and KONY 1987Saturday, 17 March 2012
I spent a fair chunk of last Sunday evening at Douglas Adams' 60th birthday party. This was a bit of a curve ball, not only because I'd never met the author of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - but also because he's been dead for nearly 11... Read more... |
Alex Horne, Soho TheatreWednesday, 14 March 2012
In Seven Years in the Bathroom, which he premiered at last year's Edinburgh Fringe, Alex Horne attempts to shoehorn the average man's 79-year lifespan - in which he says a remarkable seven years is spent in the bathroom - into an hour's comedy. It's... Read more... |
Soho Theatre announces spring seasonMonday, 12 March 2012Soho Theatre has announced its spring season for comedy and cabaret. Headline names include Andrew Maxwell, Shappi Khorsandi and Rich Hall. There's also Dan Clark from BBC Three’s How Not To Live Your Life,Luke Wright’s Cynical... Read more... |
theASHtray: Blood Car, organ donation, and the pop song carbon footprintSaturday, 10 March 2012
Put your hand up, please, if you’ve seen the multi-award-winning movie Blood Car. No? Fair enough. It was ostensibly released about two weeks ago – “in selected cinemas” – but you can be forgiven for not having tripped over any posters.Blood Car is... Read more... |
Opinion: Comedy should be taken more seriouslyMonday, 05 March 2012
The first ever work of literary theory was Aristotle's Poetics, which was written on two separate papyruses - one on tragedy and the other on comedy. However, at some point the second was lost and along with it our most ancient understanding of the... Read more... |
Jackie Mason, Wyndhams TheatreMonday, 05 March 2012
There was a time when Jackie Mason was the pre-eminent New York Jewish comedian. He had started his career in those postwar Catskills hotels catering to vacationing Jewish families from New York City, which became known as the Borscht Belt. The... Read more... |
Peter Cook Season, British Film InstituteSunday, 04 March 2012
The death of Peter Cook on 9 January 1995 was my JFK moment. I'll never forget what I was doing when I heard the news. I was driving from London to Granada Studios in Manchester to interview comedian Caroline Aherne. At the time she was married to... Read more... |
Watson & Oliver, BBC TwoTuesday, 21 February 2012
Lorna Watson and Ingrid Oliver, purely by dint of being female, have a burden of expectation before they even open their mouths, as the ghosts of French and Saunders stalk the corridors of the BBC. It's horribly unfair to saddle the newcomers with... Read more... |
Adam Riches, Soho TheatreSunday, 19 February 2012
The journey from the Edinburgh Fringe to a UK tour or London residency can be a fraught one. What works in the context of the world's biggest and best arts festival, where even in established venues there's often a whiff of “let's do the show right... Read more... |
Nathan Caton, Firebug, LeicesterTuesday, 07 February 2012
On a bitingly cold and snowy night in Leicester, Nathan Caton still manages to attract a big house for his show Get Rich or Die Cryin'. The hip young Londoner, in corncrow-and-dreads hairstyle and city slicker casual gear, is an immediately engaging... Read more... |
