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‘My accent’s ridiculous so it’s great for comedy’: standups on their home town’s humour

February 5, 2018TheGuardian

Does a regional accent give you a headstart in standup? Are some places funnier than others? Jayde Adams, Tez Ilyas and Ardal O’Hanlon explore laughter and locality

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The punchline? That depends on which part of the country you’re in. We’ve long been making gags about our neighbours. The English joke about the Irish, southerners make fun of the north, Liverpudlians tease Mancunians. And vice versa. A comedian can go on stage at a comedy club anywhere in Britain and call a nearby town a dump, and that’s the audience won over.

But what about the crowds themselves? Do some jokes go down better in the Midlands than the Highlands? Is there such a thing as a regional sense of humour?

Bristol is a magical place to gig. They’ll laugh at silly things but, if you get political, they’ll go with that, too

Lou Sanders: ‘I took a friend to a breast cancer op, all told it was a great day out’

February 2, 2018TheGuardian

The writer, standup and actor on the things that make her laugh the mostLuke McQueen singing. Or Holly Burn really committing to something in front of a bewildered audience. Senseless comedy, but it makes sense. Continue reading…

Lauren Pattison: Lady Muck review – an empowering hour of spirited standup

January 31, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
Shortlisted for best newcomer at the Edinburgh festival, Pattison delivers a drolly direct account of an annus horribilis

You may not associate live comedy with tales of learning to love oneself and overcoming adversity. But standup is no stranger to redemption these days, and rookies – such as 23-year-old Lauren Pattison – make it their narrative structure of first resort. With her debut show, the Geordie newcomer recounts her 2016 annus horribilis. Not just dumped but “ghosted” by her boyfriend, she struggled to adjust to new life in London – insecure, depressed, blaming herself for the relationship breakdown. Lady Muck traces her route to refreshed confidence, via online dating, an encounter with a sexist comedy fan, and a bilious episode in a supermarket aisle.

Sometimes, it’s more inspiring tale-of-empowerment than comedy show – particularly in the closing stages, which Pattison delivers while choking back tears. Mostly, it stays sprightly and drolly direct, as she relates multiple tales of awkward behaviour while drunk and awkward behaviour while sober. Some of that awkwardness derives from her class background: she’s more aspirational than the girls she grew up with, but too vulgar (she claims) for audiences down south. But there are deeper-seated explanations, soon revealed, for why Pattison continues to feel “uncomfortable in her own skin”.

‘Fame proved toxic for the relationship’: when comedy double acts go sour

January 27, 2018TheGuardian

David Baddiel, Andy Zaltzman, Richard Herring and other comics on fame, failure and friendship

In 1978, the year before the film 10 made a Hollywood star of Dudley Moore, the comedian appeared alongside his long-standing double-act partner, Peter Cook, on the Saturday-night chatshow Parkinson.

“Do you find some difficulty working together?” asked Michael Parkinson, the host.

He probably didn’t, ultimately, want to be in a double act. But I’d put all my eggs in that basket

We had been friends but the double act destroyed that friendship

When he fell down stairs really slowly, just to get a laugh, I felt a jolt of something close to love

Unfathomably, he chose to work on a leading satirical TV show rather than speak to 30 people in a tiny room in Edinburgh

Jen Kirkman: ‘The thing that shouldn’t be funny? Trump’s off-the-cuff speeches’

January 26, 2018TheGuardian

The standup, screenwriter and actress on the things that make her laugh the most

Norm Macdonald’s new Netflix special; his bit about suicide.

Darren Harriott review – perky gags about Corbyn, the Queen and Rastafarianism

January 24, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
The Edinburgh award-nominated standup develops a cheery rapport with the audience in this promising first show

If you want tragicomedy that cuts deep – or, for that matter, a misery memoir – Darren Harriott has got the raw material for it. But that’s not what he chooses to deliver with his maiden solo show, Defiant. Yes, he alludes to his father’s drug-dealing, mental illness and suicide. But there are dozens of other subjects over this magpie hour. This isn’t a show about his troubled backstory, or about anything else. It’s just a calling card, proving – with plenty to spare – that the perky 29-year-old can write and deliver fine jokes and establish a cheery rapport with a crowd.

Which is no mean feat – even if I want a little more over an hour of standup. Structure, maybe – but there’s none here, as the Black Country man flits between vaguely related topics at the same rhythm from start to finish. Point of view? Well, there are a few, but only ever to get Harriott from set-up to punchline. And every contentious opinion expressed is immediately reversed. He’s a remainer, but now he supports Brexit. He’s a republican, but here’s an instance when he loves the Queen. Or “I voted for Corbyn – but I don’t believe in him, man.” I longed for him to pin his colours to a mast. But he’s very personable company and has some excellent routines – like the one about Rastafarianism (his dad’s religion), or the sweet gag about confusing his libido with his craving for a sandwich.

Sarah Millican: Control Enthusiast review – a non-stop smut fest

January 23, 2018TheGuardian

Marlowe theatre, Canterbury
The comic’s latest show is bursting with gags about bodily functions but reveals precious little about Millican herself

Sarah Millican doesn’t appear much in the tabloid press, she tells us halfway through her touring show, because she’s “a very private person”. That’s not how most people would describe a comic who usually details her toilet habits, bodily functions and sex life in lurid detail. But the remark rings true – because, with each set offering a near-identical cocktail of smut and scuzzy domesticity, it becomes clearer that Millican’s shtick is as much a feat of concealment as intimacy. She’s terrific at what she does, she covers this territory more distinctively than anyone else – but her shows reveal precious little about the 42-year-old woman behind the interminable gags about farts and fannies.

Control Enthusiast is almost uncannily similar to Millican’s previous show, Outsider, which likewise mainlined sex comedy, with occasional detours into pets, fond gags about her feckless husband, and an outspoken feminist bit about body image. But I doubt many will join me in hankering after a new creative direction from Millican, who knows how to give her fans what they want, and does so unstintingly – from the show’s first words (“I’ve just put a clean sanitary towel in”) to its closing set-piece about our host’s bedtime ritual (“I reapply the cream, I wash the finger, I do a fart”).

The Big Burns Supper – in pictures

January 22, 2018TheGuardian

Dumfries celebrates the birth of Robert Burns with dance, theatre, live art and comedy, turning Burns Night into a festival of contemporary arts Continue reading…

Jordan Brookes: ‘My dog’s face. It’s so stupid, sad and hilarious’

January 19, 2018TheGuardian

The actor, writer and standup on the things that make him laugh the mostBridget Christie. Her ability to make serious points in fluidly silly ways is so impressive. Continue reading…

Denim: World Tour review – cheeky, transgressive drag act think global

January 15, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
Pop legends in their own minds, this swaggering five-piece retool Whitney and Beyoncé songs into sharp-clawed attacks on Trump and Islam

The conceit of drag girlband Denim’s show World Tour is that they’re performing it on stage at Wembley. Its achievement is to convince you that, were they to do so, they wouldn’t look out of place. They may not be performing to the 12,000 people they envisage in their heads, but they make Soho Theatre sound like that way, with this cheeky, characterful and vocally accomplished hour-long gig.

At the beginning, the five-piece seem too big for Soho’s main house. But then, that’s the joke: their swagger and stadium-pop touches are setting up a punchline to come. And you soon realise that only frontwoman Glamrou La Denim (Amrou Al-Kadhi) is outre in the conventional drag manner, and even her camp theatrics come with political edge. Her opening gag, singing the words “Alan Ayckbourn” in the style of a muezzin, are a mere palate cleanser for the solo routine mid-show, a sharp-clawed attack on Islam’s attitude to queer identity. It’s striking how transgressive this feels, as Glamrou retools Whitney Houston’s So Emotional into an Allah-baiting cri de coeur.

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