Starting a new tour is difficult, and this time my pre-show anxiety has been the worst everI am on tour right now, and I have been looking forward to being on the road for the longest time. The decision to tour was made a year and a half ago, and I hav…
Continue ReadingSoho theatre, LondonThe Scottish comic hits some acerbic highs with an oddly episodic set that hops from politics to porn to parenthood ‘Scary. Brutal. Forthright.” That’s how Fern Brady finds herself described, much to her surprise. She can certainly …
Continue ReadingTransgressive, intimidating and smeared with ketchup, the performer loves to give audiences more than they’ve bargained for – from an X-rated Jesus to a bare BoudiccaLucy McCormick pulls her elbow back and closes her left eye. Whoosh, twang, thud: the …
Continue ReadingEventim Apollo, LondonIn his first tour for eight years, the Australian polymath offers up a three-hour spectacular tracing the story of his lifeTim Minchin was “misdiagnosed” as a comedian, he says in his new show, Back. You can see what he means: com…
Continue ReadingThe actor, comedian, playwright and one half of Jonny and the Baptists on the things that make him laugh the mostI must have watched Dylan Moran’s DVD of Monster, recorded at Vicar Street in Dublin, about a hundred times. It’s storytelling, almost char…
Continue ReadingLeicester Square theatre, LondonWith typical deftness, the standup has made his scintillating two-part show a hymn to political correctness and a giddy attack on lefty sensibilitiesWhat is Stewart Lee’s position in the comedy marketplace? And whither h…
Continue ReadingThe standup comedian is used to writing for public performance, but her remarkable book Little Weirds was written as private consolationJenny Slate is sitting in the middle of a storm. She’s safe inside, somewhere on a Massachusetts peninsula, and it’s…
Continue ReadingLeicester Square theatre, LondonAt every turn, the confused ‘astronomer-in-chief’ gives us something to marvel at – from crap ventriloquism to the films of ‘Dustbin Hoffman’At least in the colloquial sense, Count Arthur Strong has always been a space c…
Continue ReadingThere is still a sickening culture of silence and fear around Weinstein. This is how ‘dreammakers’ cling on to their power• Zoe Stuckless is an actor based in OregonI had one of the most surreal nights of my life a couple of weeks ago. A friend of mine…
Continue ReadingThe standup duo and parenting podcasters on the things that make them laugh the mostHelen: Smack the Pony’s Dating Agency sketches. So silly, so gross, so desperate.Ellie: My son drew a picture of me that looked exactly like Hitler, and made me laugh f…
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