The Edinburgh comedy award winner and millennial poster boy on the things that make him laugh the most
Brent Forrester’s “Pre-Taped Call-In Show” sketch for Mr Show or any one of the more anarchic Whitest Kids U’ Know sketches like The Grapist.
Continue ReadingThe Edinburgh comedy award winner and millennial poster boy on the things that make him laugh the most
Brent Forrester’s “Pre-Taped Call-In Show” sketch for Mr Show or any one of the more anarchic Whitest Kids U’ Know sketches like The Grapist.
Continue ReadingThe comedian’s new show questions how to cope with the relentlessness of today’s politics. He discusses the ‘cult’ of Catholicism, his love of poetry and giving up his vices
“I’ve been doing this for a quarter of a century,” points out Dylan Moran. “I’m probably going to know about as much as I’m ever going to know on a working level. There’s a liberty in that.” It’s hard to believe so much time has passed since the Irish comic first shuffled on to the stage, cigarette and drink at the ready, and appeared not to know what on earth he was doing there. In 1996, aged 24, he became the youngest person to win the Perrier comedy award at the Edinburgh festival, and embarked on his first UK tour the year after. TV and film opportunities followed, often playing various iterations of his rumpled, grumpy stage persona: in the 1998 sitcom How Do You Want Me?, with the late Charlotte Coleman; a cameo as a shameless shoplifter in the Richard Curtis film Notting Hill; roles in the Simon Pegg vehicles Shaun of the Dead and Run, Fatboy, Run. More recently he’s appeared in the 2014 Irish film Calvary and the TV sitcom Uncle.
But the show he remains best known for is cult favourite Black Books, co-created with Graham Linehan, in which Moran took centre stage as the operatically bad-tempered secondhand bookshop owner Bernard Black, a petty tyrant to his sweet-natured assistant, played by Bill Bailey. An extended love letter to booze, fags, dusty bookshops and stubborn individuality, it ran for three series, from 2000 to 2004, and still inspires enormous affection.
Standup was like throwing my cards in the air – or trying on a suit that fits and it’s just perfect
This country has two zombie political parties having a pretend show of political debate that will never lead to anything
Related: 50 shows to see at the Edinburgh fringe 2018
Continue ReadingThe Fawlty Towers star rails against the government, the BBC and British newspapers in stage appearance for Hacked Off
It was hard to know what to expect of a solo show by John Cleese, organised by campaign group Hacked Off. On 29 June, the comedian tweeted that it would be a “speech” but, by 5 July, he was calling it a “new one-hour comedy show”.
Cleese has experimented with standup as crowd-funding before. The audience for The Alimony Tour helped to pay for his third divorce. The £30 ticket for this event (including entry in a draw for a dinner with Cleese) was bankrolling Hacked Off’s campaign to seek judicial review of the government’s decision to abandon the planned second phase of the Leveson inquiry into journalistic ethics, which would investigate the relationship between the press and police.
Continue ReadingHammersmith Apollo, London
The standup’s new show, ostensibly about class in Britain, is often amusing, very likable but stubbornly middle-of-the-road
There is so much to say about class in Britain. So why am I always hearing the same jokes about hummus and smashed avocado?
Jason Manford grew up on a council estate in Manchester and is now raising well-heeled kids in Stockport, where life is all picnic hampers and quinoa, it would seem. The contrast is playing hell with Manford’s sense of identity, and provides rich pickings to his inverted snob of a big brother. Such is the thrust of this touring show by the former 8 Out of 10 Cats and One Show man – an often amusing, very likable and stubbornly middle-of-the-road affair that also covers feeling inadequate and what to call the meal we eat halfway through the day.
Continue ReadingThe standup on his Netflix show, corduroy trousers, his dad’s backhanded compliments and the brilliance of female comics
Kettering-born James Acaster, 33, a drummer turned comic, has been nominated for the Edinburgh comedy award a record five consecutive times. His current Netflix mini-series, Repertoire, comprises four hour-long standup performances. He is appearing at the Latitude festival, Suffolk, on 14 July.
You’re the first British comic to shoot more than one Netflix special. What’s your series about?
It’s four standup shows themed around the justice system: one about being an undercover cop, one about jury service, one about committing a crime and one about witness protection. There’s also a hidden narrative running underneath that becomes apparent as they progress.
Corduroy hits the sweet spot between jeans and slacks. They’re a trouser middle man
Related: James Acaster: the Leonardo DiCaprio of standup
Continue ReadingSuperstar standups, daring dance, Brexit cabaret and a Bon Jovi musical … Dive into our guide to some of the shows at the world’s biggest arts festival
Continue ReadingThe American standup, actor and writer on the things that make him laugh the mostThe Miles Davis autobiography. The stories he tells are insane and hilarious. Nothing is funnier than a true story told by a bitter old black man. Continue reading…
Continue ReadingThe simplicity of the Australian standup’s Netflix special gives us space to laugh and cry, and inspires us to tell our own stories
Nanette was billed as Hannah Gadsby’s departure from comedy. Instead, it has become the work that cemented the Australian’s career.
A deconstruction of the form, the show won the major comedy awards in Adelaide, Melbourne and Edinburgh, before she took it to the US where the New York Times dubbed Gadsby “a major new voice in comedy”. Now it’s a globally praised Netflix special, and Gadsby is a comedy star.
Related: Hannah Gadsby review – electrifying farewell to standup
Holy shit #Nanette is extraordinary. Blown away by @Hannahgadsby @netflix
An excellent pride activity: watch @Hannahgadsby’s absolutely stunning special “Nanette” on @netflix. Completely blew me away.
Please allow me to be the 1000th person to tell you to watch Hannah Gadsby’s “Nanette”
Related: Hannah Gadsby on the male gaze in art: ‘Stop watching women having baths. Go away.’
#Nanette also changed my life. I felt like finally someone was speaking to my lived experience in front of the whole Sydney Opera House and the words can never be taken back. @HannahGadsby truly freed us all. https://t.co/9vUTWJDxta
Standup needs to be big enough to grow and warp and change in the deft hands of an artist like Gadsby
Continue ReadingThe whip-smart comic talks about mocking Piers Morgan and Donald Trump, mixing scorn with good cheer and moving from songs to satire
‘Determined cheerfulness is something I happen to do very well,” says Rachel Parris. If you’ve seen her live musical comedy shows, you won’t need telling: they present Parris as a wholesome West End Wendy forever on the verge of a nervous breakdown, performing songs that put a brave face on a chaotic life (The Gym Song) or – like her terrific X Factor spoof I’m Amazing – clothe sharp satire in faux-positivity.
No one who saw her excellent but unheralded stage shows ever doubted Parris’s talent, but it’s a big surprise that she’s now found her mainstream niche in political satire. Her whip-smart work on the BBC show The Mash Report has been adored – and deplored – by tens of millions, and she’s become one of the most prominent political comics in the UK and beyond.
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