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Jason Manford review – confessions of a ‘muddle-class’ comic

July 2, 2018TheGuardian

Hammersmith 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.

James Acaster: ‘Brexiteers get amazingly angry about my tea joke’

July 1, 2018TheGuardian

The 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

50 shows to see at the Edinburgh fringe 2018

June 29, 2018TheGuardian

Superstar 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

Gilded Balloon

Michael Che: ‘My grandmother’s the funniest person I know. She’s a bigot and hysterical’

June 29, 2018TheGuardian

The 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…

Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette dares to dream of a different future – for ourselves and comedy | Jane Howard

June 26, 2018TheGuardian

The 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.

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”

#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

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.

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

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