Comedy Reviews
Edinburgh Fringe 2015: The Kinsey Sicks/ Minor Delays/ Rhys JamesThursday, 20 August 2015
The Kinsey Sicks, Gilded Balloon ****
The Kinsey Sicks, a four-piece drag a cappella act, were formed in 1993 and have played off-Broadway and Las Vegas; this is their UK debut. Their name is a play on Kinsey 6, the point in the scale of sexual attraction as exclusively homosexual, and they bill themselves as “Barbarella meets beautyshop”, or “chicks with shticks”. Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2015: Aisling Bea/ Funz and Gamez/ Chris StokesWednesday, 19 August 2015
Aisling Bea, Gilded Balloon ★★★★Aisling Bea received an Edinburgh Comedy Awards best newcomer nomination for her excellent show in 2013, and she returns with another high-energy hour of clowning about and rapid-fire delivery mixed with some astute political observation. Entitled Plan Bea, it's ostensibly about confidence and shame, although a clear theme never quite emerges. Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2015: Tom Allen/ Sarah Callaghan/ BEASTSTuesday, 18 August 2015
Tom Allen, The Stand ★★★★Tom Allen tells us Both Worlds is about being gay, watching daytime TV, doing the gardening and his "crushing sense of wasting his life". But this is no misery comedy, far from it, as Allen gives us an hour of sparkling wit, much of it aimed at himself, while slinging a few piercing arrows at deserving targets. Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2015: Katherine Ryan/ Adrienne Truscott/ Gein's Family GiftshopMonday, 17 August 2015
Katherine Ryan, The Stand ★★★★ "TV's Katherine Ryan," she introduces herself with heavy irony; the Canadian has gone from Fringe performer to never off the telly in just a few years and knows that the sobriquet can be both a compliment and a drawback. Yet when her waspish humour is such good value it's easy to see why producers love her. Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2015: Bridget Christie/ Mark Steel/ Beth VyseThursday, 13 August 2015
Bridget Christie, The Stand ★★★★Bridget Christie, the comic credited with bringing feminism to the fore with her 2013 Edinburgh Comedy Awards-winning show, broadens her target for withering political analysis and to great effect. Read more... |
Rob Delaney, QEHThursday, 25 June 2015
Most people in the UK will know US comic Rob Delaney from his wonderfully sardonic Twitter feed (1.17 million followers) or his autobiography Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage - a painfully honest (and often snortingly funny) account of his alcoholism as a younger man. Read more... |
Tommy Tiernan, Soho TheatreMonday, 15 June 2015
Tommy Tiernan tells us not to take him seriously at the start of his latest show, Out of the Whirlwind. “I’m like a cow mooing for the sake of mooing,” he says – which neatly explains the surreal riffs in a mesmerising 80 minutes, but also lets him off the hook for some of his edgier material. He has often courted controversy in his native Ireland, and there is the occasional line tonight that draws a shocked response from the audience. Read more... |
Nina Conti, Theatre Royal, BrightonWednesday, 20 May 2015
“Two-and-a-half hours? That’s one hell of a long puppet show,” said a friend. We had, however, read the Brighton Festival programme wrong. The pre-interval section of last night’s show was a screening of the BBC documentary Nina Conti – A Ventriloquist’s Story: Her Master’s Voice, which was on television a couple of years back and nominated for a BAFTA. Read more... |
Alex Horne: Monsieur Butterfly, Soho TheatreFriday, 08 May 2015
There are many forms of comedy – stand-up, sketch and improv among them – and now Alex Horne has introduced a new genre as he constructs his set during the hour he spends on stage. It's a kind of Heath Robinson or Rube Goldberg device (that is, a machine that performs a simple task in an unnecessarily complicated way), and the anticipation builds as we see it coming together, and finally learn its purpose. Read more... |
Panti: High Heels in Low Places, Soho TheatreFriday, 24 April 2015
Panti Bliss is not a name on many people's lips outside Ireland, but over the past year she has gone from little-known club performer to self-described “accidental activist”, and this utterly charming, funny and touching show tells her story. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages...
