Comedy
kate.bassett
Bubbles are emanating from Simon Munnery's head. They're streaming out of a huge, black stovepipe hat which he has cobbled together from cardboard and sticky tape. He has also slung an electric guitar over his shoulder as he sidles up to the mic to begin Hats Off to the 101ers, and Other Material. What does he look like? A cranky mishmash. Kids' entertainer or mad Victorian undertaker? Fortysomething geek or indie rocker?His gigs defy narrow categorisation too, being experimentally varied and full of non-sequiturs. One minute he'll be launching into a satirical droning ballad – "la la la, Read more ...
Jasper Rees
On Easter Monday, as the sun came down over the sea, a crowd of 15,000 – it’s not quite right to call them theatre-goers – followed Michael Sheen as he dragged a cross to Port Talbot’s own version of Golgotha, a traffic island hard by Parc Hollywood. The culmination of a three-day epic, The Passion of Port Talbot was street storytelling at its most transformative. The cast of thousands, including local am drammers and the Manic Street Preachers, were dragooned by WildWorks, National Theatre Wales and, above all, Sheen, whose year this was.His sectioned Hamlet at the Young Vic underlined what Read more ...
bruce.dessau
I have always fought hard to resist nostalgia, but 2011 was the year when I succumbed. Maybe the present – and the future – was just too awful to contemplate, but I found myself constantly looking back. Whether it was onstage, onscreen or on a hand-held device the past seemed to provide the requisite cultural comfort food. Dessau Towers remains a dubstep-free zone.The tipping point was one weekend in July when Morrissey pitched up in a Kent field and delivered a sublime greatest hits set. Like many middle-aged people he went through a phase of rejecting his youthful outbursts, but now he is Read more ...
Veronica Lee
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.Rising above the so-so were Stewart Lee, a comic at the top of his game, Glenn Wool, Sarah Millican and Dave Gorman. And of the younger comics, Totally Tom, a Read more ...
Ismene Brown
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.There's a linkable clue to each question where you will find an article that furnishes the answer. All the answers are on another page here - which will become live at noon today to give you a start.In film, what is “the Great Whatsit?” ClueWhich shuttered cultural Read more ...
theartsdesk
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.A suitcase bomb in Kiss Me DeadlyThe Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, which reopened its main theatre in October, having lost its ballet director Gennady Yanin to scandal and its stars Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev to the Mikhailovsky Ballet"Everyday"29205Noel GallagherPhyllida Lloyd1980 Read more ...
theartsdesk
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.As well as posting our usual range of reviews (coming up in the next couple of days, some terrific writing on theatre, film and television), we also have a selection of seasonal treats. On Christmas Day we are publishing a bumper arts quiz specifically tailored for readers of theartsdesk, who know their cultural onions. (Sample questions: "In Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy what type of mint Read more ...
David Nice
You know what to expect from an audience with Dame Edna Everage. The London-loving Merry Widow of Moonie Ponds can be trusted to hurl her gladdies, patronise the paups in the cheap seats, dish out tough love to a lesser suburban housewife and lead a paean to her "niceness". But this is not a panto which simply grovels at the feet of her colonial highness. Another dame (lower case this time) who’s also the writing and directing genie of the show, a jaw-achingly funny stand-up and everybody else consummate in their proper panto places and against pretty sets all give the global gigastar a run Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Tommy Tiernan Crooked Man (Pias Comedy)Tommy Tiernan is a well-kept Irish secret. He won the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1998 and until recently confined his touring mostly to his native Ireland and America, but now thankfully the UK has lately been added to his regular schedule. This DVD was filmed in Cork and has much Ireland-related material, such as the comic's time as an altar boy, the joys of discovering sex in a religious country and living in a post-Celtic Tiger world. He's a man frightened by facts, and too much rationalism, he explains, is bad for the soul; in a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Every year at the Edinburgh Fringe there's a sleeper hit, or a show that promises little on paper but delivers big time in the flesh, and this year's unexpected success was Set List, a kind of improv for stand-ups, which has also been called “comedy without a net” or “like flying without wings”. Only the bravest comics attempted it, and now the show's producers are putting it on in London for a few performances so more people can see whether those descriptions are accurate, or simply prove that comics like a bit of hyperbole. It is, like many a good thing in the entertainment industry, an Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Stewart Lee is in Eeyorish mood. The BBC have not yet got round to recommissioning his acclaimed television show. They have been more bountiful, he grumbles, with Russell Howard, and you can hear the older man’s withering scorn for the younger, blonder cherub contractually obliged never to step away from the cameras. On the plus side, he is in residence at this cosy but capacious theatre until February, a booking that only the promise of television audiences can gift. New recruits have therefore been persuaded in, but they do not receive a friendly greeting: the understanding is that they Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Those of a certain vintage will know Richard Herring's irreverent comedy best from his BBC television work with erstwhile partner Stewart Lee - including Fist of Fun (1995-96) and This Morning with Richard Not Judy (1998-99) - while newer fans will be familiar with his radio work and podcasts. Over the years, though, while Lee has grown into the most astute and cutting political comic of his age, it's probably fair to say that Herring has taken a more meandering route to finding his métier.Herring is not afraid to take on big subjects – religion in Christ on a Bike!, Read more ...