Comedy Reviews
Ruby Wax, Brighton Festival 2019 review - how to be humanSunday, 19 May 2019
Once the self proclaimed poster girl for mental illness, Ruby Wax has evolved her stand up act, because, as she puts it, “everyone has mental illness now. It spread like wildfire.” Read more... |
Andy Hamilton, Brighton Festival 2019 review - gently amusing night of reminiscenceTuesday, 14 May 2019
Taking place at the Theatre Royal, Andy Hamilton’s show is entitled An Evening with… rather than a straight stand-up and mainly consists of the comedy writer/performer and gameshow regular answering audience questions. During the first half this is done via raising a hand and shouting out questions; during the second half by leaving pieces of paper on the stage front during the interval. Read more... |
Seann Walsh, Broadway, Letchworth Garden City review - Strictly's bad boy tells his storyFriday, 10 May 2019
Let's start with that kiss – the one that propelled Seann Walsh from “Who?” in last year's Strictly Come Dancing line-up to being the “bad boy” of the series after pictures of his drunken late-night clinch with Katya Jones, his married professional dance partner, appeared in the tabloids. Read more... |
Reginald D Hunter, Princes Hall Aldershot review - underpowered but the laughs come throughMonday, 06 May 2019
Reginald D Hunter drops the n-bomb near the top of the show. He means no offence, he tells the audience, but it's the vernacular where he comes from in Georgia. Read more... |
Krater Comedy Club, Brighton Komedia 25th Birthday review - a south coast institution celebratesSaturday, 04 May 2019
The Komedia is a Brighton Institution and celebrates its birthday tonight in a suitably raucous fashion. The Komedia began in 1994, founded by the directors of the Umbrella Theatre Company, and styled on the cabaret spaces they’d experienced touring Europe. Read more... |
Mark Thomas, BAC review - impassioned polemic about the NHSThursday, 25 April 2019
Mark Thomas issues a health warning for Check-Up: Our NHS at 70 at Battersea Arts Centre – “This show contains swearing, a video of an operation on a stomach and a description of being in A&E when a patient dies.” Indeed it does, but it also contains a heartfelt love letter to the health service Thomas was born in and, as a lifelong socialist, hopes to die in. Read more... |
Britney, Soho Theatre review - finding the funny in a brain tumourMonday, 22 April 2019
A brain tumour isn't usually the subject of a comedy show but Britney, written and performed by comedy duo Charly Clive and Ellen Robertson, is just that. It's “the true story of what happens to two best friends when one of them [Clive] gets a brain tumour” – the size of a golf ball, her father helpfully pointed out. Read more... |
Tommy Tiernan, Shepherd's Bush Empire review - playful and poeticFriday, 19 April 2019
Tommy Tiernan is something of an institution in his native Ireland, as a stand-up comic, newspaper columnist, sometime chat show host and full-time controversialist. Now his appearance as Da Gerry in Channel 4's Derry Girls has brought him to a wider audience – both geographically and generationally – and deservedly so. Read more... |
Angela Barnes, Blackheath Halls review - a pessimist turning the tablesWednesday, 10 April 2019
Angela Barnes is one of life’s pessimists, she tells us at the top of the hour, but she’s trying not to be so world-weary, and to turn negatives into positives. And, while there’s so much awfulness going on around us, why not try to lighten the mood a little? Read more... |
Aziz Ansari, Eventim Apollo review - show follows his #MeToo momentThursday, 04 April 2019
Most people in the UK know American actor and stand-up Aziz Ansari from Parks and Recreation, where he played the sarcastic and underachieving local government official Tom Haverford. Comedy fans will also know him as a successful club comic on both US coasts, and from his Netflix specials. Read more... |
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