Comedy Features
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 the New Order bass guitarist Peter Hook, so when the radio announced that Peter Cook was dead my ears did a double take. Read more...
|
2011: A Demon Barber, Demented Comedy and a Dogged DetectiveTuesday, 27 December 2011![]()
In a year when there was precious little to laugh at economy-wise, some funny men and women were doing their best to keep our chuckle muscles in working order - although, strangely, you may think, few stand-ups were doing overtly political comedy - and the Edinburgh Fringe, normally a reliable source of laughs, was having a quiet year as lots of established comics stayed away and the next generation mostly hadn't yet found their voice. Read more... |
theartsdesk Christmas QuizSunday, 25 December 2011![]()
You're going to test your stomach and sweet temper to the maximum today - test your brain and memory too with our monster quiz about the arts covered by theartsdesk in 2011. Every artform is represented here in 12 dozen questions. Settle down between courses, films and presents and see how many you and your near and dear can do. Read more... |
theartsdesk Christmas Quiz - AnswersSunday, 25 December 2011
Here are the answers to our monster Christmas arts quiz of 12 dozen questions on the year past, as seen by theartsdesk writers. There are clues in all the questions in the main quiz page. If you don't want to know the answers just yet till you've grappled with them, close this page now. Read more... |
Christmas on theartsdesk: Brainteasers, Bran Tub, and the Best of 2011Wednesday, 21 December 2011![]()
Any day now most of us will be hunkering down and for the most part drawing a curtain about the world outside. Before that happens, we’d like to tell you about theartsdesk’s plans for Christmas and the New Year. Read more... |
DVDs for Christmas: ComedyMonday, 12 December 2011![]()
|
theartsdesk's Christmas Presents GuideMonday, 13 December 2010![]()
With the lightning speed of online delivery, there is still masses of time to select the best and most enjoyable presents for Christmas, thanks to the taste and wisdom of theartsdesk's pack of writers. Read more... |
Q&A Special: Comedian Jan RavensThursday, 01 October 2009
Jan Ravens is probably best known for several series of Dead Ringers, broadcast first on Radio 4 then BBC2, when she voiced all the female characters from Kirsty Wark and Fiona Bruce to Ann Widdecombe and Nigella Lawson. Before that she was part of the Spitting Image team, appeared on Alexei Sayle's Stuff and in sitcoms No Frills and The Grimleys. She has also appeared in 2DTV and Alastair McGowan's Big Impression. Read more... |
Ross Noble is pro-liveMonday, 14 September 2009
It sounds like a joke. These two Jehovah’s Witnesses walk up a garden path. You could, suggests Ross Noble, write it and “give it to someone like Jim Davidson”. Only this one's a true story. A few years ago these two Jehovah’s Witnesses, a man and a woman, walked up Ross Noble’s garden path. For all his big black hair, thick Geordie accent and a face that says "I am a stand-up comic", they evidently had no idea whose door they'd knocked on. |
Pages
latest in today

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...

Fragile egos abound. An older person (usually a man) has to bring the best out of the stars, but mustn’t neglect the team ethic....

Mountainish by Zsuzsanna Gahse is a collection of 515 notes, each contributing to an expansive kaleidoscope of mountain encounters....

All We Imagine as Light focuses on the lives of three women in contemporary...

I came to Isata and Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s Wigmore Hall recital on Saturday armed with a certain degree of scepticism. Not about the siblings’...

Opera North have recently pioneered a way of presenting some big works which they call “dramatic concert stagings”, performing in concert halls as...

Transcendence is everywhere in Mahler’s most ambitious symphony, from the flaming opening hymn to the upper reaches in the epic setting of Goethe’...

Following a tradition that reaches back to the The Who’s Tommy, bands and musicians with serious artistic ambition have created rock...

The blurb on the front of the double-CD set The Hamburg Repertoire says it collects “The original recordings of songs...

“Let the music guide your imagination” was never going to be the slogan of the Southbank Centre’s Multitudes festival. Its 13 events...