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Are you gruesome tonight? The comedy hit splicing Evil Dead 2 and Elvis songs

November 14, 2017TheGuardian

In Sam Raimi’s horror classic, a man is tormented by demons and his own severed hand. All the story needed was a few tunes by the king of rock’n’roll, says Rob Kemp

By day, he was a mild-mannered examinations officer at a school near Wolverhampton. By night, he was a chainsaw-wielding maniac with a soft spot for Elvis numbers. No, that’s not a pitch for a B-movie, but the life of standup comic Rob Kemp. The 39-year-old will spend much of the next month commuting between the West Midlands and Soho theatre in London, shedding the briefcase and tie en route to re-enter the underworld of The Elvis Dead, his rock’n’roll-meets-horror one-man comedy show that became the cult hit of this summer’s Edinburgh fringe.

Hitherto, Kemp had been a specialist in “whimsical” (so he’s told) standup and was “bumping along largely unnoticed”. His only previous show, little seen, was a Dave Gorman-esque comedy lecture about hubris. The Elvis Dead (it’s a retelling of Evil Dead 2 set to the music of Elvis Presley) was dreamed up in conversation with a friend, based on Kemp’s supposed resemblance to horror icon Bruce Campbell. “There was nothing cynical about it,” he says, in case you’re thinking that the Elvis/Evil Dead mashup was a ruthlessly commercial cash-in. “I just wanted to write something that I knew my mates would enjoy.”

Louis CK: laughter ends as years of allegations dog comedy superstar

November 10, 2017November 10, 2017TheGuardian

The fallout from CK’s sexual misconduct accusations has begun, with HBO dropping his shows and colleagues condemning a man once hailed as a genius

When Louis CK first attempted standup comedy, at a 1985 open mic night in Boston, it was a disaster. He had a five-minute slot but only two minutes of material.

“It was horrible,” he told NPR 30 years later. “My whole throat constricted and … I heard this roaring in my ears. My eyes were watering. My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t control myself. And I just felt like a pile of garbage. And then I kept doing it.”

Don’t go there? Standups on Weinstein, taboos – and the gags they regret

November 3, 2017TheGuardian

Is it ever OK for comedians to joke about sexual assault? Is there such a thing as ‘too soon’? Margaret Cho, Doug Stanhope, David Cross and other fearless comics on the fine line between funny and offensive

Last month, as accusations against Harvey Weinstein began to flood in, James Corden stepped on stage at a black-tie event in Los Angeles and joked about the film producer’s alleged sexual assaults. “It’s a beautiful night here in LA,” he said. “So beautiful, Harvey Weinstein has already asked tonight up to his hotel to give him a massage.”

Two days later, after a barrage of criticism, Corden apologised. He is one of many comedians who have attempted to engage with a contentious topic only to have the move wildly backfire. It requires huge skill to take on a taboo subject and even then it’s still a minefield. Lenny Bruce was arrested many times for breaking obscenity laws, for saying things like “jack me off” and “motherfucker”. He was eventually convicted in 1964. One routine, which suggested that men will cop off with anything, included the phrase “go come in a chicken”. In 2003, he received a posthumous pardon.

I don’t say ‘faggot’ any more – even though I have defended the use of it in the past

Funny Cow review – Maxine Peake blazes in the dark days of standup

October 11, 2017TheGuardian

Peake is hypnotically belligerent as an ambitious club performer trampling over prejudice and sticky carpets on the 1970s comedy circuit

Maxine Peake dominates the screen as producer and star of this painful, angry film written by Tony Pitts and directed by Adrian Shergold, about a fictional female club comedian fighting her way to the top, or at least the middle, in 1970s Britain.

Maybe without Peake this would have looked merely strident or chaotic; and to be frank, even with Peake, it does flirt with some age-old cliches. Comedians are traditionally given centre stage in a drama on condition that they reveal themselves to be unhappy or empty inside. But Peake gives it a fierce, blazing energy and holds everything together through the magnetic force of her performance. Jim Moir, John Bishop, Kevin Eldon and Diane Morgan provide cameos (perhaps to underline the project’s comedy credentials) and the excellent Christine Bottomley is perhaps a bit underused as Peake’s mum.

Tim Minchin: ‘The world feels a bit post-jokes’

October 8, 2017TheGuardian

The comedian-composer on his children’s book, Australia’s same-sex marriage vote and why he’s glad to be leaving Hollywood

Australian composer and comedian Tim Minchin, 42, was born in Northampton but raised in his parents’ native Perth. After an award-winning comedy career, he wrote the music and lyrics for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s global hit musical Matilda, followed by the stage musical adaptation of Groundhog Day. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Sarah, a social worker, and their two children.

Tell us about your new children’s book, When I Grow Up, which is based on the lyrics of the song from Matilda.
It’s awesome – I didn’t even have to do anything [laughs]. That’s the incredible thing about Matilda, it keeps manifesting itself in different ways. It’s profoundly gratifying to have something else beautiful put into the world that was sparked by something you wrote eight years ago.

In a global world, nationalism is a fantasy and it’s poison. It used to be appropriate but it’s not any more

The superhero and the standup: Spider-Man Tom Holland and his dad Dominic

August 19, 2017TheGuardian

The star of Marvel’s blockbuster is the subject of his father’s comedy show at the Edinburgh fringe. They discuss the art of getting laughs, sending Spidey back to school and finding the old man a part in a webslinging sequel

There is no shortage of up-and-coming comedians with famous parents at this year’s Edinburgh fringe: Elliot Steel (son of Mark), Will Hislop (son of Ian) and Ruby Wax’s daughters, Maddy and Marina Bye, are all performing. At the Voodoo Rooms venue in the New Town, the situation is a little different. Standup Dominic Holland, who recently turned 50, is in Edinburgh with a free fringe show, 24 years after winning the best newcomer award at the festival. The subject of his new set? How his success has been surpassed by that of his 21-year-old son, Tom, star of Marvel’s latest blockbuster, Spider-Man: Homecoming.

“I genuinely don’t need to be here,” Dominic states in his show, Eclipsed, with reference to his son’s lucrative webslinging contract. He describes his own gig as “indoor busking” – it’s free to get in but he holds a bucket for punters’ donations on their way out. Tom is currently filming sci-fi thriller Chaos Walking, co-starring Daisy Ridley and based on Patrick Ness’s book trilogy, but has flown in from Canada to see the show with his family. It’s a surprise for his dad and, when I meet the two of them afterwards, they whip out a phone to play the video of Dominic’s ecstatic reaction when Tom turned up that morning.

Mum must have countless Spider-Man costumes that all of us boys have worn through the years

Steven Wright, master of meh: ‘This is just how I talk. It accidentally went well with the jokes’

June 26, 2017TheGuardian

The big-haired, sleepy-eyed standup is an Oscar-winner, one of America’s best-loved comedians and ‘a car that has no gears’. Now, his deadpan style has won him a perfect role in The Emoji Movie

There are answers, and there are Steven Wright answers. Who else – responding to questions over the phone from London to Rhode Island, where he loves to vacation – would compare owning an Oscar statuette to “seeing Neil Armstrong bouncing down your driveway as if he was walking on the moon”? Who else, reflecting on 38 years as one of America’s best-loved standups, would describe themselves as “a car that has no gears”. Wright elaborates: “I just started at an open mic night in the 1970s and I’m still going, still doing now what I started to do then. I know other people might look up to me. But really, I’m just me after a bit of time has gone by.”

That’s true, to a large extent: Wright’s comic style has remained remarkably consistent over four decades. But the 62-year-old isn’t being “just me” right now. He’s being an emoji, in an animated movie to be released this summer. That’s where the transformation ends, however, given that the deadpan-bordering-on-catatonic Wright has been cast as Meh, the only emoji characterised by a complete lack of emotion.

Jenny Slate: ‘Ivanka Trump is a fake feminist and should be ashamed’

June 18, 2017TheGuardian

The US actor, standup and author on her new film, Gifted, rescuing her career after being fired from Saturday Night Live, inspirational women and the terrifying situation in the White House

Jenny Slate, 35, is an American comedian, actor and author. The middle of three sisters, with a ceramicist mother and poet father, she was raised in Milton, Massachusetts. While at Columbia University, Slate performed standup and improv. Moving to Los Angeles with then-husband, director Dean Fleischer-Camp (they’ve since amicably divorced), Slate joined Saturday Night Live in 2009, but accidentally swore in her first episode and was fired after one season. A stop-motion short animation made with Fleischer-Camp, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, became a viral hit, leading to New York Times bestseller children’s books and plans for a feature-length movie.

With her distinctive voice, Slate featured in Zootopia and The Secret Life of Pets. On television, she appeared in Parks and Recreation, Married and Girls. Her performance in Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child, playing a comic navigating a pregnancy termination, won her awards including the Critics’ Choice award for best actress in a comedy. Slate stars in another Robespierre film, Landline, due out in the summer. In her latest film, Gifted, she plays a teacher who becomes involved with a man (Chris Evans) caring for his maths prodigy niece (Mckenna Grace).

Dying Laughing review – savagely funny documentary about standup

June 16, 2017TheGuardian

Sarah Silverman, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Stewart Lee, Garry Shandling and Victoria Wood feature in this film about the craft and catharsis of comedy

A murderer’s row of standup talent has been assembled for this documentary on the craft and catharsis of comedy. Chris Rock, Steve Coogan, Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Silverman and Stewart Lee are among the many faces providing testimony to the euphoria and agony that telling jokes to a group of strangers can bring. The film is stronger on the latter point, with some savagely funny accounts of the many ways that comedians deal with hecklers, and one devastating account of a gig going horribly wrong.

The endless conveyor belt of talking heads does rather lose its lustre over time, and some actual standup would have been welcome, but there’s a dizzying amount of insight, not to mention a real poignancy to some of the contributors: including Garry Shandling and Victoria Wood, both of whom died in 2016.

The 10 best things to do this week: Machynlleth festival, Arca and Mindhorn

April 21, 2017TheGuardian

Britain’s best standups hit the Welsh town, the Venezuelan producer plays London and Julian Barratt stars as a washed-up former TV cop

From Cradle to Stage
Mum’s the word! Literally, actually, as Foo Fighter Dave Grohl’s mother, Virginia, has gone around the world to interview mothers about their famous offspring, from Pharrell Williams’s ma Carolyn to Amy Winehouse’s mummy Janis for a new book. It’s out on 25 April.
From Cradle to Stage by Virginia Hanlon Grohl is published by Coronet, £20

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