Comedy
Bo Burnham, TouringSunday, 10 November 2013
Massachusetts-born Bo Burnham first performed in the UK at the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe. The then teenage prodigy, who had come to fame as a YouTube sensation, took the festival by storm and was given the Edinburgh Comedy Awards' panel prize. He hasn't... Read more... |
Sarah Millican, Hammersmith ApolloSaturday, 09 November 2013
Sarah Millican’s career blossomed on the back of a divorce. Her husband upped sticks after seven years of marriage when she was 29. The rage and sorrow catapulted an innately funny office worker into a second career. For her new show, entitled Home... Read more... |
Bridget Christie, Soho TheatreFriday, 08 November 2013
Most years at the Fringe, there's considerable division over the winner of the Edinburgh Comedy Award, but not in 2013 when Bridget Christie won for A Bic For Her, a show that expertly fillets everyday sexism and misogyny. Even those who remarked... Read more... |
Andrew Maxwell, Soho TheatreSaturday, 02 November 2013
When Andrew Maxwell premiered Banana Kingdom at the Edinburgh Fringe earlier this year, its title made a lot more sense. The show was a coruscating examination of what Scotland might be if the independence vote next September goes Alex Salmond's way... Read more... |
Jason Manford, Hammersmith ApolloThursday, 31 October 2013
Mancunian Jason Manford is the kind of chap it would be difficult to dislike. Laidback, casually dressed, smiley and interacting with his audience in a totally unthreatening manner - it's no wonder that that demeanour, coupled with his everyman... Read more... |
Bill Bailey: Qualmpeddlar, Brighton Centre, BrightonFriday, 25 October 2013
At one point during the show Bill Bailey makes an aside about the last words of biologist JBS Haldane which were, according to the comedian, a comment about God having an “inordinate fondness for beetles". He then goes into a routine about deathbed... Read more... |
Pajama Men, Arts TheatreSaturday, 19 October 2013
We're advised to take off our shoes, as the show will knock our socks off; it's the first of many neatly worked bits of wordplay about how good the show will be - “Is there anybody named Annette in the audience? Good, because this is comedy without... Read more... |
Abandonman: Moonrock Boombox, Brighton Dome Studio TheatreFriday, 18 October 2013
The front rows of an Abandonman gig are not a place for shy people. The core of rapping Irish comedian Rob Broderick’s act has long been to interact with the audience and turn the nuggets he gleans into ridiculous songs. For his latest show,... Read more... |
Russell Brand, Hammersmith ApolloWednesday, 16 October 2013
Russell Brand, as I've written before, divides the room. Well, not the beautifully refurbished 3,000-seat Hammersmith Odeon in London, where his faithful gathered for the past two nights on his mammoth international tour, but more generally. There... Read more... |
Bryony Kimmings, Soho TheatreFriday, 11 October 2013
Internet porn, the sexualisation of childhood and the objectification of women are so commonplace in Western society that they go mostly unmentioned and unchallenged, even in the arts. So thank goodness for performance artist and comic Bryony... Read more... |
The Commitments, Palace TheatreWednesday, 09 October 2013
The setting is Dublin. We're talking modern-day and down-at-heel in this major new musical which has a deliberately scruffy look – with a launderette glowing in the dark and a concrete, four-storey housing block hulking upstage. The adaptation is by... Read more... |
Brighton Comedy Festival opening galaSunday, 06 October 2013
Charity gigs, by their very nature, are usually jolly affairs, and Brighton Comedy Festival’s opening gala at the Dome was no exception. It had a stellar line-up, but also the advantage of being hosted by Alan Carr (the patron of The Sussex Beacon,... Read more... |
