Comedy Reviews
Pajama Men, Arts TheatreSaturday, 19 October 2013
We're advised to take off our shoes, as the show will knock our socks off; it's the first of many neatly worked bits of wordplay about how good the show will be - “Is there anybody named Annette in the audience? Good, because this is comedy without Annette” - in a fantastic opening riff before Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez get down to the proper business of the evening. Read more... |
Abandonman: Moonrock Boombox, Brighton Dome Studio TheatreFriday, 18 October 2013
The front rows of an Abandonman gig are not a place for shy people. The core of rapping Irish comedian Rob Broderick’s act has long been to interact with the audience and turn the nuggets he gleans into ridiculous songs. For his latest show, Moonrock Boombox, which he now brings to the Brighton Comedy Festival, he turns the crowd participation into a surreal space adventure. Read more... |
Russell Brand, Hammersmith ApolloWednesday, 16 October 2013
Russell Brand, as I've written before, divides the room. Well, not the beautifully refurbished 3,000-seat Hammersmith Odeon in London, where his faithful gathered for the past two nights on his mammoth international tour, but more generally. There are those who find his – and I use the word deliberately – cocksureness irritating, or his loquacity a ridiculous affectation. Read more... |
Bryony Kimmings, Soho TheatreFriday, 11 October 2013
Internet porn, the sexualisation of childhood and the objectification of women are so commonplace in Western society that they go mostly unmentioned and unchallenged, even in the arts. Read more... |
The Commitments, Palace TheatreWednesday, 09 October 2013
The setting is Dublin. We're talking modern-day and down-at-heel in this major new musical which has a deliberately scruffy look – with a launderette glowing in the dark and a concrete, four-storey housing block hulking upstage. The adaptation is by Roddy Doyle himself, based on his 1987 comic novel. Read more... |
Brighton Comedy Festival opening galaSunday, 06 October 2013
Charity gigs, by their very nature, are usually jolly affairs, and Brighton Comedy Festival’s opening gala at the Dome was no exception. It had a stellar line-up, but also the advantage of being hosted by Alan Carr (the patron of The Sussex Beacon, in whose aid it was given) who was, like most of the guests, on cracking form. Read more... |
Mark Thomas: 100 Acts of Minor Dissent, Connaught Theatre Ritz Studio, WorthingSaturday, 05 October 2013
Mark Thomas is telling us how he organised a large gay rights comedy gig outside the Russian consulate in Edinburgh (where this show was part of the Fringe), how it was a huge success, how the local police chief affably arranged for the street to be blocked off to traffic, and how the comedian Stephen K Amos raised a huge cheer of support for the cause to which one policeman on duty responded with enthusiastic and heartfelt applause. Read more... |
Ardal O'Hanlon, TouringMonday, 16 September 2013
Ardal O'Hanlon is best known as Father Dougal in the much missed Father Ted (created by Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan), but he started life as a stand-up and he clearly brought many of his own qualities – although not the dimwittedness – to the lovable Irish priest, as an hour of his latest show proves. He riffs on matters ranging from Catholic guilt and racial stereotyping to monogamy and paedophilia without once offending anyone. Read more... |
Ronny Chieng, Soho TheatreTuesday, 03 September 2013
Newcomer Ronny Chieng doesn't waste any time trying to get the audience on his side. He outlines his interesting ethnic background – born in Malaysia to Chinese parents, several years spent in the United States and Singapore, and he did a law degree in Australia - but that mix is distilled into his Chinese ethnicity and its innate superiority to anything Western. He says he's tried reclaiming the word 'chink', in the style of black rappers and the n-word Read more... |
Matt Okine, Soho TheatreFriday, 30 August 2013
Australian stand-up Matt Okine made his UK debut at the Edinburgh Fringe last month and earned himself a best newcomer nomination in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, to add to his best newcomer award at 2012's Melbourne Comedy Festival (jointly won with Ronny Chieng). He's certainly an assured performer, even if his observational humour relies too heavily on the everyday in Being Black & Chicken & S#%t. Read more... |
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