Comedy Reviews

Ed Byrne, Touring

Veronica Lee Thursday, 10 March 2011

Ed Byrne: Joke-making of the highest order

Many of you will know Ed Byrne from his appearances on BBC shows such as Mock the Week and Have I Got News For You, where his sardonic take on current affairs marks him out as a sharp-tongued and quick-witted comic. Now he’s touring with a new show, Crowd Pleaser, which I saw at the Anvil in Basingstoke; like his previous live work, it’s another well-constructed evening of smart observational comedy.

Ruby Wax: Losing It, Menier Chocolate Factory

Veronica Lee Thursday, 24 February 2011

Ruby Wax has packed a lot into her life - writer, actor, stand-up comic, television interviewer, to name a few. But possibly her greatest professional achievement will be her work in mental health, prompted by her own experiences of depression, which has led to a BBC series about the subject and her current studies for an MSc at Oxford.

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Lenny Henry, Touring

Veronica Lee Monday, 21 February 2011

It takes a certain something to make a roomful of white people get their funk on.

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Jimmy Carr, Orchard Theatre, Dartford

Veronica Lee Sunday, 16 January 2011

Jimmy Carr, a comedian who has more than once got into hot water over jokes that some find offensive, does a very strange thing for the encore of his latest show, Laughter Therapy - he gives a lecture cum homily on the limits of offensiveness, and how anything is permissible if the audience allows it. “I know my jokes are cruel and brutal and unacceptable,” he says. “But they have only one purpose - to make you laugh.”

Punt & Dennis, Touring

Veronica Lee Thursday, 13 January 2011

Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt: Funny, but less than the sum of their parts

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis originally came to fame in the late 1980s as one half of the satirical sketch group The Mary Whitehouse Experience, with fellow Cambridge alumni David Baddiel and Rob Newman. Now, though, most people know them (as a double act, at least) as the lead performers in The Now Show on Radio 4.

Jackson's Way, Touring

Kate Bassett Monday, 10 January 2011

Will Adamsdale as Chris John Jackson, a manic, self-promoting American life coach

Will Adamsdale was so sweat-drenched by the end of his character-comedy show Jackson's Way – on the night I saw it at the Soho Theatre – that you might think he had just emerged from a frantic triathlon swim. Actually, he is performing a marathon of sorts: the Jacksathon, 26 gigs in as many days in various venues across London.

Year Out/Year In: Comedy Stands Up to Questions of Taste

Veronica Lee Friday, 31 December 2010

Offensive? Moi? Jimmy Carr, keeping it real in 2010

It was a year when comics at opposite ends of the scale - offensive or annoyingly bland - were taking up room on our television screens and selling out ever-larger arena tours. And the depressing rule of thumb (with a few honourable exceptions) that the blander the comic, the bigger the venue, held true in 2010, so thank goodness there were some terrific shows by talented performers in medium-size theatres. As it happens, the most memorable show I saw all year was in a small venue at the...

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Jason Manford, Hammersmith Apollo

Veronica Lee Wednesday, 24 November 2010

Jason Manford: The Mancunian comic made some cheeky references to his recent difficulties

In the course of his decade-long career Jason Manford has benefited from the British public’s appetite (eagerly fed by television producers) for inoffensive and family-friendly comics. Similar stand-ups, for instance Michael McIntyre and Peter Kay, have even become millionaires by providing this kind of comedy, and until recently there was no reason to believe that Manford was going to do anything other than follow in their footsteps, particularly after he was made co-host of BBC One’s ...

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Fry and Laurie Reunited, Gold

howard Male Wednesday, 24 November 2010

There’s a surreal sitcom waiting to be written about the often-told story of when Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse were Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie’s plasterers for a while in the early 1980s.

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Jon Richardson, Soho Theatre

Veronica Lee Monday, 22 November 2010

Jon Richardson: A funny man wound up in his neuroses

Jon Richardson’s first full-length show in 2007, Spatula Pad, was about the seemingly unpromising subject of having obsessive compulsive disorder, and being a misanthrope to boot. But it deservedly gained him an If.Comedy Award Best Newcomer nomination, which was followed by another in the main category of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for last year’s show, This Guy at Night, about how his perfectionism has ruined his relationships.