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Andrew Hunter Murray review – a fun-filled, pub quiz comedy

March 6, 2017TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
The Austentatious comedian divides the audience into competing teams in this frivolous, sometimes surreal and very likable show

The improv group Austentatious has become quite the production line of talent, with Cariad Lloyd, Joseph Morpurgo and Rachel Parris all spinning off into eminent solo careers. Now here’s Andrew Hunter Murray, debuting with a set structured around a pub quiz. The host is nerdy Tony Rebozo, a lifelong quiz fanatic, perky on the surface and desperate behind the eyes. The audience is divided into teams (the local book group; an estate agents; a samba class, etc), representatives of which Hunter Murray plays in broad sketches that punctuate each round.

It’s character comedy, in which characterisation plays a minor role. Hunter Murray seldom pretends to be anyone other than himself, whether in the wafer-thin, transparently ridiculous guise of a harassed property manager with a bee infestation, or a snake-hipped Brazilian whose dance instruction draws on amusingly convoluted similes. Most of the roles, such as the reading-group martinet smoking out book dodgers, involve playful audience involvement, but we feel safe and happy in Hunter Murray’s hands. He’s like a gentler Adam Riches, generating much silliness and only a little nervous laughter.

Russell Kane: ‘The funniest heckle I’ve ever had? Nick Grimshaw!’

March 3, 2017TheGuardian

The flamboyant standup on the things that make him laugh the most, from cult books and Tim Vine to reindeer’s blood pancakes

“Fuck off Nick Grimshaw”. Wherever I go, people angrily insist that I am he. The more I protest, the more certain they are. It was funny. At first.

Hate Thy Neighbor’s Jamali Maddix: a crude, cartoonish, straight-up standup

March 2, 2017TheGuardian

The comic who presented a TV series on the rise of the far right is back with a show that combines goofballery with cultural commentary

Did you see Hate Thy Neighbor on Viceland TV? A sizeable chunk of the audience at Jamali Maddix’s Soho theatre gig did. His documentary series about the rise of the far right seems to have catapulted the east Londoner to the frontline of young comics, and raised expectations, perhaps, that he’ll be a social commentator as well as a teller of jokes.

I saw Maddix’s maiden Edinburgh fringe show last August. He was promising and charismatic, but a bit raw, and some of his crowd interactions felt slightly misjudged. For his week-long Soho theatre run, however, he is on better form. He wasn’t polished then and he’s not polished now; that’s not his style. There’s a scruffy, shooting-the-breeze vibe, he often gets tongue-tied – and his appeal boils down as much to funny manner as to the acuity of any specific thing he’s saying. You get a lot for free when you look as distinctive as Maddix (bottle-bottom glasses, bushy beard, beanie hat and tattoos), speak like a cartoon (dismay and declamation forever propelling him to the top of his register) and gesticulate like a rapper.

Seann Walsh review – enjoyable riffs on crumbs and courgetti

February 26, 2017TheGuardian

Theatre Royal, Brighton
Walsh wears his comic curmudgeonliness well as he rebels against sober maturity, clean eating, Tinder, vapes and smartphones

Professional curmudgeon is a familiar standup persona, and Seann Walsh wears it well – which is handy, given that he’s casting around for a new role. In his early shows – The Lie-In King was Edinburgh comedy award-nominated – Walsh played the roistering lager lout. Aged 31, and reluctantly grown-up (“I can now see crumbs!”), that’s hard to sustain. Instead, in One for the Road, he plays the appalled refugee from youth into maturity, aghast at the ways the sober British adult is nowadays expected to spend his time.

Seann Walsh: ‘I wrote a line for The Thick Of It – it’s probably my proudest moment’

February 24, 2017TheGuardian

The fun-loving standup and panel show regular on the things that make him laugh the most, from Partridge to sausage

The Thick Of It. “Wake up and smell the cock,” is one of the best lines ever written; they managed to make the sound of the letter “K” a left turn punchline. That blew my mind. I inadvertently wrote a line for it once. Will Smith is asked: “What do you ask for at the hairdressers, Disney Prince?” I had told Will he had Disney Prince hair at Banana Cabaret. He kindly credited me on Twitter. That’s probably what I’m most proud of in my career.

Ricky Gervais review – ruthless, self-revealing show is his best yet

February 24, 2017TheGuardian

Colston Hall, Bristol
Gervais’s new set, Humanity, is pumped with scorn and provocation but the inclusion of more personal material gives a rare glimpse of a gentler man

In his new standup show, Humanity, his first for seven years, Ricky Gervais tells a childhood story about his Uncle Reginald, a bald man whose preposterous wig ignited a conspiracy of silence in the family. Can we blame – or thank – Reg for the entertainer his nephew became? For tonight’s show, and Gervais’s whole comic career, is one big delinquent reaction against just such taboos, a gleeful rending of drawn veils, to hell with feelings hurt in the process. Those sensitive to transgender issues, say (or jokes involving rape or cot death), should take a deep breath before booking for Humanity. And yet, it’s Gervais’s best and most considered standup show so far.

It’s also, not coincidentally, his most personal. Alongside the Uncle Reg material, there are stories about his prankster brother Bob, their mother’s funeral, and life growing up on a Reading council estate. This is a self-revealing side to Gervais we’ve seldom seen, offsetting the wilful provocation with something gentler, less attention-seeking.

Alfie Brown review – subversive standup rages about the pieties of our age

February 23, 2017TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
Like a British Doug Stanhope, the provocative comic oozes scorn, cynicism and sardonic spleen

There’s a gap in the market for a British Doug Stanhope, although Alfie Brown, who is best positioned to fill it, would reject the terms of that proposition. His whole career, and much of this show, oozes scorn for capitalism and commodified culture. On stage, that parlays into sardonicism, spleen and self-laceration: Brown doesn’t make himself easy to love. But even if you frequently disagree with this hectoring takedown of the pieties of our age, you’ll never be bored.

Provocation is the keynote: Brown has an armful of subversive arguments, some of which surely aim more to ruffle than persuade. We’re all a bit racist: Brown’s analysis of our wariness of passengers who “look like terrorists” on planes. Men are victims of gender inequality: he rages with envy at the intensity of the female orgasm.

Max and Ivan review – rambunctious comic duo are a dorky delight

February 22, 2017TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
Scout leaders haunt the woods with crossbows and there are groansome puns aplenty in this deliciously silly coming-of-age show

After half a dozen shows together, Max Olesker and Ivan Gonzalez are presenting the origin story of their friendship. It’s told, as were its predecessors (including the award-nominated Edinburgh fringe show turned recent Channel 4 short The Reunion), in the form of a multi-character, two-person, freewheeling comic play. The teen twosome meet while attending scout camp and wrestling school and their dorky bromance is spliced with sketches and nonsense as the pair’s present-day relationship skates close to the rocks.

Susan Calman review – Radio 4 favourite’s sparky set is far from cosy

February 20, 2017TheGuardian

The Stables, Milton Keynes
The standup reveals she’s taken up boxing on her Calman Before the Storm tour, and the show swipes energetically at a formidable array of targets

“No one says, ‘Hicks. Pryor. Calman’,” says Susan Calman, ruefully. “I’m not a dangerous comedian.” By her own admission, Calman is considered precisely the opposite, a “Radio 4 favourite”: chirpy, erudite, unlikely to alarm the livestock. Now 10 years a comic, her touring show locks horns with that reputation, and asks: is she the comedian audiences suppose her to be? If that sounds self-reflexive, I can only report that the navel gaze has done no harm to the comedy. This is a good-time standup set, more assertive and upbeat – and at ease with itself – than the shows I’ve seen her perform in the past.

The most recent was 2015’s Lady Like, in which Calman recounted a nervous breakdown she experienced as she adjusted to newfound celebrity. No such shadows cloud this set, which is conspicuous for its energy and ebullience. Itemising the expectations others have of her (left-wing, intellectual, lesbian) – endorsing some, scorning others – there’s a real attack to Calman’s comedy here. She’s taken up boxing, she tells us – and this feels like 90 minutes delivered by a contender always on the balls of her feet.

Shappi Khorsandi: ‘My worst job? Life modelling for a woman who made me recite Shakespeare as I posed’

February 18, 2017TheGuardian

The comedian and author on memories of Iran, doing things her way and buying her mum a walk-on part

Born in Iran, Shappi Khorsandi, 43, was granted asylum in the UK after her family was forced to flee following the Islamic Revolution. After a degree in drama, theatre and television, her career in standup took off in 2006 with her Edinburgh show Asylum Speaker. She is the author of A Beginner’s Guide To Acting English, and a novel, Nina Is Not OK. This spring, she tours the UK with her show Oh My Country! She is divorced, has two children and lives in London.

When were you happiest?
Right now. Ask me again when my children are grown, and I’ll sob, “When they loved me more than that woman/man they’ve shacked up with.”

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