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The Mash Report’s Rachel Parris: ‘There was a lot of excitement and fury’

June 25, 2018TheGuardian

The 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.

Gina Yashere review – liberal anxieties defanged in homecoming triumph

June 24, 2018TheGuardian

Underbelly, South Bank, London
The Londoner turned US Daily Show star shows herself more clown than commentator as she unpicks British race relations and Anglo-Nigerian manners

Last month, UK comedy audiences had a visit from Daily Show host Trevor Noah; this month, his Brexit correspondent and so-called “actual British person”, Gina Yashere, follows in his footsteps. Famously, Yashere had to quit Britain and its low glass ceiling for black comedians, to get a break. But this homecoming gig shows she has left in body only. She remains every inch the Londoner, and her set navigates the landscape of British race relations and Anglo-Nigerian manners as deftly as if she had never been away.

And she does so while largely avoiding the stereotypes in which previous routines have traded. This new show Funkindemup finds Yashere on her finest form – prowling the stage, alpha female, effortlessly in charge, at last enjoying the professional status she always felt she had earned. After some ice-breaking gags about rap music, she starts with a section on Windrush, slavery, and the “subtle, side-eyed racism” of the Brits – who are much cleverer than the Americans, says Yashere, at covering their racist tracks.

Adam Riches: ‘The funniest number? 43, it’s just so gloriously pathetic’

June 22, 2018TheGuardian

The comedian, writer and Foster’s Edinburgh comedy award winner on the things that make him laugh the most

Everything in Airplane! Leslie Nielsen’s nose growing as he tells the passengers everything is going to be fine. The captain walking through the terminal beating up all the people who offer him flowers. And, of course, the actual shit hitting the actual fan.

Marc Maron: ‘I’m familiar with coke, anger, bullying, selfishness’

June 16, 2018TheGuardian

The Glow star and hit podcaster talks drugs, divorces and his ‘horrible’ feud with Jon Stewart

The night before I meet Marc Maron, I go to his standup show in London. These days Maron is best known for his hugely popular podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, which he started in 2009, and on which he has interviewed everyone from Barack Obama to Keith Richards and Chris Rock. He conducts most of the interviews from his garage in LA, and they are almost always revealing and always entertaining. In 2010, Robin Williams talked about his depression and addictions, four years before he killed himself. Obama talked about the racism and African American stereotypes that shaped his sense of self. WTF now gets 7m downloads a month.

But in the 90s, when I first discovered him, Maron was not known for his empathetic dialogues; rather, he was seen as an aggressive monologuer. Back then, he was a struggling standup, with a style that was often described as angry and arrogant – or, as his friend Louis CK once put it, “a huge amount of insecurity and craziness”. He was known as a comedian’s comedian, which is a nice way of saying the industry liked him, but audiences didn’t.

Some of my behaviour was not great. It was emotionally abusive

The food stuff is my deepest issue, more than the drugs. I guess it’s about self-loathing and control

Doug Stanhope review – grim, thrilling and appallingly funny

June 8, 2018TheGuardian

Brixton Academy, London
One of the sharpest minds and loosest cannons in comedy is back with material about rape, race and #MeToo

“Is it wrong to use racism to try and stop gang rape?”

American standup Doug Stanhope is back in the UK and, yes, that sound you can hear is sacred cows bellowing. This near two-hour set showcases the best, and flirts with the worst, of this bleakest, blackest comic. Sometimes it is grim, sometimes you’ve just got to hold your nerve, and occasionally it’s thrilling to be back in a room with one of the sharpest minds and loosest cannons in comedy.

Doug Stanhope review – grim, thrilling and appallingly funny

June 8, 2018TheGuardian

Brixton Academy, London
One of the sharpest minds and loosest cannons in comedy is back with material about rape, race and #MeToo

“Is it wrong to use racism to try and stop gang rape?”

American standup Doug Stanhope is back in the UK and, yes, that sound you can hear is sacred cows bellowing. This near two-hour set showcases the best, and flirts with the worst, of this bleakest, blackest comic. Sometimes it is grim, sometimes you’ve just got to hold your nerve, and occasionally it’s thrilling to be back in a room with one of the sharpest minds and loosest cannons in comedy.

Sophie Willan: ‘The funniest meal I’ve ever eaten? A leftover blob of MDMA’

June 8, 2018TheGuardian

The comedian, writer and author on the things that make her laugh the most

Not the Nine O’Clock News is timeless. My favourite one is Gerald the Gorilla with Rowan Atkinson. It’s genius, silly stuff.

Sophie Willan: ‘The funniest meal I’ve ever eaten? A leftover blob of MDMA’

June 8, 2018TheGuardian

The comedian, writer and author on the things that make her laugh the most

Not the Nine O’Clock News is timeless. My favourite one is Gerald the Gorilla with Rowan Atkinson. It’s genius, silly stuff.

Edinburgh fringe 2018 to tackle #MeToo and celebrate Blue Peter

June 6, 2018TheGuardian

Lineup for 71st edition includes hard-hitting debuts and plenty of nostalgia

An array of provocative debuts will mix with a heavy dose of nostalgia at the 71st Edinburgh fringe festival this August, as creative takes on the #MeToo movement are performed alongside a theatrical tribute to Blue Peter, the world’s longest-running children’s TV show.

Launching the 2018 fringe programme with 3,548 shows, the most in its history, the event’s chief executive, Shona McCarthy, said: “Whether this is your first or your 50th time visiting the fringe as a performer or audience member, this is a place where new discoveries wait around every corner.”

Pieter-Dirk Uys review – South African satirist relives his apartheid clashes

June 5, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
Uys delivers an engaging memoir about his life, from 1940s Cape Town to a regime-mocking drag act

Part memoir, part nostalgia trip for white South Africans, Pieter-Dirk Uys’s new monologue is a world away from the arch satirical turns with which he made his – or rather, his alter ego Evita Bezuidenhout’s – name. There are no frills, just Uys in black, on a stool, narrating his life story from 1940s Cape Town via a London education and back to a career mocking the apartheid regime in theatre and drag. It’s performed in a low-key style, but Uys is a capable raconteur with an eventful story that shines a light on social and political history across two continents.

A long-distance friendship with Sophia Loren provides a rather improbable subplot

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