fri 20/12/2024

sketch comedy

Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Sheeps / Mhairi Black

Sheeps, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★This is the first new show that Sheeps – Liam Williams, Al Roberts and Daran Johnson  – have produced in six years, but they say The Giggle Bunch (That's Our Name For You) is their last. Having gone...

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Lazy Susan, Soho Theatre On Demand review - sketch duo's ingeniously plotted show

You may have seen Lazy Susan's excellent BBC pilot last year; now a series has been commissioned from Freya Parker and Celeste Dring so we can look forward to more sketches, surreal interludes and tiptop visual gags – as well as returning characters...

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theartsdesk Q&A: Director Sir Jonathan Miller

Doctor, writer, sculptor, curator, comedian, presenter and director, Sir Jonathan Miller (1934-2019) was one of the mighty cultural and intellectual omnivores of our age. To those of a musical or theatrical bent, however, Miller was above all one of...

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Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Clive Anderson / Goodbear

Clive Anderson Assembly George Square ****Clive Anderson has obeyed the Fringe comedy gods and given his debut solo show a title and a theme. Actually, Me, Macbeth & I is mostly just him talking very amusingly for an hour about his days in the...

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Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Nick Helm/ Just These Please/ Anna Drezen

Nick Helm Pleasance Dome ****What a pleasure it is that Nick Helm has returned to the Fringe after six years away after appearing in television comedies Uncle and The Reluctant Landlord.That’s the straightforward reason he has been a stranger...

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Sheeps, Soho Theatre review - sketch comedy with a touch of the surreal

Sheeps, the sketch comedy threesome, had never really gone away but when they performed Live and Loud Selfie Sex Harry Potter at the Edinburgh Fringe last year after a four-year absence, it was called a comeback. More a welcome reunion, as...

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The League of Gentlemen Live Again!, Sunderland Empire review - going local for local people

When the League of Gentlemen – Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, plus non-performing writer Jeremy Dyson – reformed for an excellent series to update us on events in Royston Vasey (“portal to another world, or just a shit hole?”)...

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CD: Big Narstie - BDL Bipolar

The Bass Defence League campaigns for mental health. As with everything Big Narstie does, there are serious points in this release wedged next to the broadest comedy, and it’s no coincidence, as we learn from the vivid parody of “BDL Protest” intro...

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300 Years of French and Saunders, BBC1 review - seasonal treat from the sketch duo

What joy that Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders were persuaded by the BBC to celebrate their 30 (ish) years as a comedy duo with this programme – and that this sweet confection was shown on Christmas Day. It was a pleasing mix of old clips and new...

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Our Friend Victoria review – Victoria Wood’s genius is irreplaceable

In the closing credits of Acorn Antiques, wobbling diagonally across the screen, it says the part of Berta was taken by “Victoria Woods”. Has there ever been a lovelier, truer typo? There was only one Victoria Wood, and yet she seemed somehow to be...

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Walliams & Friend, BBC One

The sketch format goes in and out of favour. It was huge in the 1970s, crawled under a rock when alternative comedians found other means of expression, and was reinvigorated 20 years ago by genuinely inventive shows like Big Train and The Fast Show...

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The Catherine Tate Show Live, Eventim Apollo

Catherine Tate's television sketch shows - apart from a couple of specials devoted to her character Nan Taylor - were last screened in 2007, and she hasn't performed comedy live since her early days at the Edinburgh Fringe. So it was particularly...

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