Comedy Reviews
The Good Life, Richmond Theatre review - popular sitcom gets its own origin storyMonday, 29 November 2021
"Off-grid" wasn't a thing in the mid-'70s. Sure, people planted a few potatoes in the garden and pottered about a bit in an allotment, but nobody went the whole hog. The rat race was certainly a thing though, a fertile seam for comedies like The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Read more... |
Alfie Brown, Soho Theatre review - a contrarian on great formFriday, 19 November 2021
Well, this is a first: a comedy show with footnotes. Alfie Brown tells us at the top of the hour that he'll be stepping out of his routines from time to time to explain why the gag he's about to tell, or has just told, isn't offensive. It's a clever touch, one of several in Sensitive Man. Read more... |
Ahir Shah, Soho Theatre review - lockdown laid bareFriday, 12 November 2021
During lockdown most of us were caught in a Groundhog Day existence of sleep, eat, exercise with Joe Wicks, take part in a Zoom quiz, bake banana bread, repeat – or variations on that theme. So a comic doing a show talking about his lockdown experience is taking a risk that it might not be the most scintillating hour – and so it proves with Ahir Shah's Dress. Read more... |
Milk and Gall, Theatre 503 review - motherhood in the age of TrumpThursday, 11 November 2021
Tuesday, 8 November 2016. Vera is in a New York hospital room giving birth to a son. On anxiously checked phones, the votes are piling up for Hillary, but the states are piling up for Trump. Vera’s world will never be the same again. Read more... |
Iliza Shlesinger, Eventim Apollo review - feminism, the internet - and brasFriday, 05 November 2021
Iliza Shlesinger is an American writer, performer and presenter whose film work includes roles in Pieces of a Woman and Good on Paper, the latter which she also wrote and produced. She's also an established stand-up comic, with five Netflix specials to her name. For her latest stand-up show, Back in Action, she was on a fleeting visit to London as part of an international 70-date tour, delayed by COVID, before she performs some dates in the US. Read more... |
Dave Chappelle: The Closer, Netflix review - race and class examinedWednesday, 20 October 2021
Say what you like about Dave Chappelle, but if nothing else he's an equal-opportunities offender, as his latest Netflix special, The Closer, proves. The last of his six specials for the network, all of which have drawn criticism – as well as plaudits – for his uncompromising “I tell it as I see it” material has again provoked ire in some quarters. Read more... |
Jason Manford, London Palladium review - lockdown laughs and feelgood funMonday, 11 October 2021
Tickets for Jason Manford's Like Me went on sale in 2019 but the tour had to be put on hold as events unavoidably detained him at home. "I hope you haven't gone off me in that time – it does happen," he said. He needn't have worried as the Palladium crowd were as delighted as he was to be in a theatre, having a laugh. Read more... |
Blithe Spirit, Harold Pinter Theatre review - an amusing, if dated, revival of the Coward classicWednesday, 22 September 2021
We’re in an agreeable drawing room with an author, Charles Condomine, who is looking forward to having a bit of fun with a local spiritualist, Madame Arcati, whom he has invited over for an evening séance. Read more... |
Anuvab Pal, Soho Theatre review - Empire and Bollywood collideMonday, 20 September 2021
Anuvab Pal may be a new name to some UK audiences (although many will know him from the global satirical podcast The Bugle), but he is well known in his native India. Read more... |
Olga Koch, Soho Theatre review - personal, political and playfulMonday, 13 September 2021
Olga Koch – born in Russia to ethnic German parents, multilingual and now living in London – might fit into the group that Theresa May once dismissed as “citizens of nowhere”, whatever that phrase means. Read more... |
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