Comedy
Veronica Lee
Due to unfortunate circumstances I am unable to give a star rating to this show; 15 minutes into the second half a cast member collapsed on stage and the performance was cancelled. At the time of posting Ted Robbins (extreme right in the picture below) was recovering in hospital, in a stable condition, and we wish him a speedy recovery.I can of course write about what I did see, and much of it was great fun. Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights is a special live version of the sitcom set in a working men's club (the Phoenix) "just off Junction 7 on the M61" in Bolton (from where Kay hails). It's Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The Glasgow International Comedy Festival was launched last night (the day after Burns Night) at the Leicester Square Theatre in London, with Stewart Lee, Rob Deering, Simon Munnery, Janey Godley and others giving a taster of what's to come in Scotland's second city 12-29 March.The festival – the biggest of its kind in Europe – is now in its 13th year and goes from strength to strength; this year there are 400 shows in 46 venues over 18 days. The strong line-up features both big names in comedy as well as those starting out in their careers; of the former, Jimmy Carr, Dylan Moran, Frankie Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It may not have been the most stellar year for comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe, but 2014 was made memorable not just by a long-awaited reunion, but also by witnessing a fine solo debut of a performer we're more used to seeing as part of a terrific double act. It was fun, too, to see the development of talented live performers – some newbies, another continuing to find her voice after a few years in the business. And lastly for seeing others keeping on doing what they do very, very well.Monty Python, O2 Arena LondonMonty Python Live (Mostly): One Down, Five to GoFor decades it seemed unlikely Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It's always an education to see a comic – now a part of the British comedy establishment – performing a gig in his own backyard. And Dara Ó Bríain, at the Royal Theatre in Castlebar, Co Mayo, was just that; he had, as ever, done his homework, immediately throwing in several local references, plus a few more that his Twitter followers would recognise, and told them that returning to his home country on the Irish leg of his Crowd Tickler tour after a few years away from the stage was an education for him too. Ireland is undergoing so much rapid political change at the moment, he said Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Many of the audience for An Evening with Noel Fielding were still in nappies when the comic first plied his trade as one half of The Mighty Boosh with Julian Barrett, which started life on the Edinburgh Fringe in the late 1990s and quickly became a cult hit.But since Howard Moon and Vince Noir have been put into mothballs, Noel Fielding has forged a career as an actor (The IT Crowd), television host (Never Mind the Buzzcocks), and the creator of several outlandish characters in various solo TV projects, most recently Luxury Comedy.In his new show – Fielding's first major live outing as a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It's a conundrum for some in the industry how John Bishop, so beloved of the BBC, which has given him several vehicles to parlay his Liverpool-lad-made-good comedy, can still, as a multimillionaire, perform his smiley Everyman persona with such conviction and be met with such affection - as indeed he was at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham where I saw his Supersonic arena tour.It cannot be a case of, as an old show business saw (attributed to many) has it, “Sincerity; if you can fake that, you've got it made”, because, although he made a very good fist of it in Skins and Route Irish, Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Well, here’s a first; I was taken to a comic’s dressing room to be checked out before I could review his show. There was a mix-up over tickets for Jim Davidson so the front-of-house manager asked him If he would give the OK to let me in. “He wants to see you,” he said. After a few minutes of Davidson telling me he doesn’t read his reviews, how awful journalists are and how he now couldn’t do jokes about Guardian readers, lesbians and immigrants (he did all three), he took me to the bar and bought me a drink while we talked about both growing up in south London.I wish, then, I could Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The last time I saw Lee Mack live, my companion and I were literally in pain because we were laughing so much. It's perhaps unfair to expect a repeat of such a wonderful, life-affirming experience - live comedy is an ephemeral art, after all - but the comic doesn't appear to be even trying to achieve the same effect on his audience in his latest show, Hit the Road Mack, and this time we both left disappointed.His 75-minute set - including a lengthy Q&A, almost always a sign of a shortage of material - is delivered at Mack's usual breakneck speed as he paces across the stage. The comic Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It's inevitable that Paul Daniels would introduce his wife and onstage partner as “... the lovely Debbie McGee”, one of two phrases now synonymous with the magician and comic. (The other, “you'll like this, not a lot”, makes an appearance later in the evening.) However there's nothing predictable about this entertaining show of magic tricks and illusions - most of them devised by Daniels, and others associated with great names from the past that the comic, a keen student of the art of magic's history, has given a modern makeover.I saw the show at the Broadway Theatre in Barking, and Daniels Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Lee Evans is one of those comics people either love or can't stick, and the audience at the O2 Arena last night clearly fell into the former camp – not much point in them being there at 55 quid a pop otherwise. For the latter group, though, his new show, Monsters, would be further proof that the Billericay stand-up is all style and no substance.He makes his entrance with a pre-recorded song-and-dance number, burbling backstage with a large troupe of dancers and then appearing, alone, in a blaze of lights. Had he reinvented himself as a variety entertainer after his recent sojourn on the West Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Awards are strange things; they can recognise real achievement while at the same time overlook the really talented. Annoyingly, Luisa Omielan fell into the second category with her first two full shows - What Would Beyoncé Do? and its equally joyous follow-up, Am I Right Ladies?! - both of which should have been recognised in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards (in 2012 and this year respectively) but weren't.Am I Right Ladies?! is a sort of companion piece to WWBD? but you don't have to have seen Omielan's debut show in order to enjoy or understand what's going on here. It follows in the same vein Read more ...
David Nice
“It takes a star to parody one,” wrote theartsdesk’s Edward Seckerson, nailing the essence of this immortal spoof-fest’s last incarnation at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Star quality was assured given the presence of Damian Humbley, peerless in Merrily We Roll Along and even the unjustly short-lived Lend Me a Tenor, who’s in this transfer. Sophie-Louise Dann, a genius of a performer who dazzled as a prima donna in that last and even stole the show as a minor lovesick aesthete in a Proms Patience, isn’t – she’s busy preparing her Barbara Castle in Made in Dagenham just down the Strand, though Read more ...