Comedy
Lucy Porter, Quarterhouse, Folkestone review - confessions of an ex-BrownieMonday, 02 March 2020
Scouting and Girlguiding may seem awfully old-fashioned to some, yet many youngsters are still keen to join the Scout movement. Be Prepared (the Scout motto) was inspired by Lucy Porter's two children joining the Beavers, its youngest iteration.... Read more... |
Ahir Shah, West End Centre, Aldershot review - a millennial's existential angstFriday, 28 February 2020
Ahir Shah has delivered some very good comedy by performing as a man who knows he is right about everything – that's what a political degree from Cambridge can do for you. But now the comic, rightly lauded for his previous polemicist shows with two... Read more... |
Simon Brodkin, The Stables, Milton Keynes review - comics casts off his Lee Nelson characterThursday, 27 February 2020
Simon Brodkin is best known for his cheeky Cockney wideboy character Lee Nelson, and for pranking the famous – notably handing Theresa May her P45 at the Conservative Party conference in 2017, throwing Nazi-themed balls at Donald Trump when he... Read more... |
Alexei Sayle, Oxford Playhouse review - return of the political bruiserMonday, 24 February 2020
It has been seven years since Alexei Sayle last toured, with radio shows and books detaining him elsewhere, but he's back with a bang. As he walks on stage, he immediately starts railing about the “Eton boys running the country”; instead of hailing... Read more... |
Simon Evans, Blackheath Halls review - a big reveal worth waiting forMonday, 17 February 2020
Simon Evans is a comic known for pithy observational humour, and an often acerbic take on politics, with occasional bits of biography thrown in. But The Work of the Devil (which started life at the Edinburgh Fringe last year as Dressing for Dinner... Read more... |
Jen Brister, Soho Theatre review - parenting, privilege and porn under scrutinyThursday, 13 February 2020
Jen Brister loves her five-year-old twin boys, she is at pains to tell us, even when they have a major meltdown and, like Little Lord Fauntleroys, refuse to eat broken biscuits. Stories like these are sprinkled throughout her new show, Under... Read more... |
David Baddiel, RST, Stratford-upon-Avon review - taking on the trollsMonday, 10 February 2020
David Baddiel is a keen Twitter user, commenting on matters of the day, making witty observations about this and that, or simply chatting to his 650,000 followers. But he does seem to attract trolls, whose idiocy he frequently confronts – and his... Read more... |
Jayde Adams, Soho Theatre review - witty celebrity takedownMonday, 03 February 2020
No more glitzy and glam musical shows for Jayde Adams, the comic tells us at the top of the hour. Now, after a few years in the business, she wants to be taken seriously (or seriously enough to host Crazy Delicious on Channel 4), so the sequinned... Read more... |
Matt Forde, Soho Theatre review - Brexit and beyondFriday, 24 January 2020
Matt Forde sets out his stall in Brexit: Pursued by a Bear from the first line: “We meet in diabolical circumstances.” These aren't good times, he says, with two major leaders in the Western world whose relationship with the truth is merely that of... Read more... |
Flo & Joan, Soho Theatre review - entertaining wit and whimsyMonday, 20 January 2020
Musical comedy siblings Nicola and Rosie Dempsey (Flo and Joan were their grandmother and great-aunt's names) get along very well – even being mistaken for lovers by one Paris hotel who gave them a double bed – and certainly their chat between songs... Read more... |
Frank Skinner, Garrick Theatre review - a masterclass in owning the roomThursday, 16 January 2020
When Frank Skinner did a London run of new material last year, the show was billed as a taster of a longer touring version. I wrote then that the show whetted my appetite for more, and I'm glad to say that the updated version, Showbiz, which now has... Read more... |
Leicester Comedy Festival Gala Preview Show, De Montfort Hall review - mixed bag in mixed billMonday, 13 January 2020
A mixed bill rarely pleases all comedy tastes – whether in style or content – and so it proved at the launch of the Leicester Comedy Festival, which starts next month. In a line-up of eight comics that had few star names, the best came last – but... Read more... |
