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Robert Newman: Total Eclipse of Descartes review – philosophical funnies

January 10, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
An infinite number of monkeys, Pavlov’s dogs and Cartesian thought are gleefully debunked in a jaunty and refreshingly intelligent show

At the start of his comedy career, Robert Newman was famous – with partner David Baddiel – for a sketch called History Today in which they played fogeyish academics dissing each other’s mums. Twenty-five years later, it’s history every day for a comedian – a little less famous now – whose successive shows delve deeper into the past to fathom the dodgy politics of the present. His new set, Total Eclipse of Descartes, like its two predecessors, takes aim at what Newman sees as a rationalist fallacy – in this case, the body/brain duality as proposed by the titular 17th-century philosopher. On Descartes’ flawed logic, he blames the centuries of human exceptionalism that followed and much of the “macho sadistic melodrama” that passes for science today.

Newman’s gone on a twisty journey over the past two decades, first fleeing from success, then edging back to it through his novels, activism and wilfully uncommercial boffin-standup with a ukulele garnish. Having pioneered stadium comedy with Baddiel, Newman is now as likely to be found on an arena stage as … well, as Michael McIntyre is to deconstruct Cartesian thought. And yet he’s still got comedy chops. The new show isn’t just an intellectually restless tour of the sterility of three centuries of philosophy, it’s got jokes, too, some of them as childishly silly as History Today.

Sophie Willan: who are you calling a northern working-class comic?

January 9, 2018TheGuardian

Her childhood in care, her mother’s heroin addiction, her days as a sex worker … Bolton comedian Sophie Willan is turning the details of her life into dazzling standup

It’s great to have Sophie Willan’s working-class voice in the comedy industry. That’s not (just) me talking, that’s how “loads of people” have greeted the Lancastrian since her standup debut in 2016. “Some people are quite up for being pigeonholed like that,” says Willan. “But I think nuance is important.”

What do onlookers mean when they peg Willan as “northern” and “working-class”? How accurately can those labels describe any of us? Those are the questions posed by her second show, Branded, which tours next month. With it, Willan enacts phase two of her manifesto, as she calls it, to bring authentic working-class voices into the mainstream – while questioning why those voices are momentarily hip again.

Working class may be ‘cool’ now, but ‘they want your identity and your story, but not the personality that goes with it’

Omid Djalili – cheesy gags and silly dancing from a lovable schmuck

January 9, 2018TheGuardian

Leicester Square theatre, London
The convivial comic serves up a hotchpotch of creaking jokes, funny accents and satire – but not all his fans can stomach it

‘I’ve been heckled, I’ve been physically attacked,” says Omid Djalili from the stage, “but I’ve never before been overcome by fumes.” Tonight, he is, after his most vocal fan in the second row vomits 20 minutes before the end of his set. Everyone within a five-metre radius scatters; the drunken offender staggers to the exit; Djalili temporises, uncertain whether the gig can continue.

It can, albeit through a pukey miasma: Djalili delivers his closing routines from behind a mask improvised from his T-shirt. It’s not the finale anyone would fantasise for the first night of their London run – nearly two years after the Anglo-Iranian comic started touring Schmuck for a Night. But nor is it a disaster for Djalili, whose entertaining but unexceptional show has been given an unearned slice of “you had to be there”.

Angus Gordon and Aaron Chen review – kings of cringe fascinate and frustrate

January 8, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
The award-winning Aussie duo flout standup’s conventions to mine laughs from misery and nihilism. It’s certainly bold – but can you get too much of a bad thing?

The list of best newcomer winners at the Melbourne comedy festival doesn’t exactly heave with famous names – not to people in the northern hemisphere, at least. But there are a few, including Flight of the Conchords and Daily Show correspondent Ronnie Chieng. Will the names Angus Gordon and Aaron Chen one day trip as easily from the tongue? On the basis of this double-billed UK debut, you’d probably hedge your bets. Yet you can see what swayed the judges: Gordon and Chen are distinctive personalities, with ambitious new angles on the art of standup.

But they’re also both, to some degree, anti-comics: performers who scorn the conventions of standup and prompt the kind of nervous laugh generated by material more painful or inept than outright funny. Anti-comedy has a distinguished lineage, from Andy Kaufman via Gregg Turkington’s dyspeptic alter ego Neil Hamburger to the monotonous Brit Edward Aczel. That’s the ballpark we’re in this evening: discomfort in place of mirth. As Gordon says at the top of his set (looping in Chen’s sidekick Jon Lo): “We’re just three variations on Australian awkwardness.” Which, after an hour and 40 minutes, doesn’t seem like much variation at all.

Ahir Shah: ‘The funniest number? £350m, in a gallows humour sort of way’

January 5, 2018TheGuardian

The 2017 Edinburgh comedy award nominee on the things that make him laugh the most

Doug Stanhope, Emo Philips, Reginald D Hunter and Adam Hess are the only comedians who have made me laugh so much I couldn’t breathe. I don’t know if this is a compliment.

Dave Chappelle’s ‘reckless’ #MeToo and trans jokes have real after-effects

January 4, 2018TheGuardian

In his Netflix shows the comic defends his right to provoke, but protests against his gags about misconduct allegations and transgender people are justified

Dave Chappelle’s first Netflix specials, released last spring, left his reputation in need of recovery. Those two sets were widely criticised for their transphobia. Suddenly, a comic once considered radical for his super-smart critiques of race in America was toeing a conservative line on a new generation’s struggle for social justice. But now Chappelle’s back with two more Netflix offerings – and he’s not in the business of recovering his reputation at all. At least, not in the way you might expect.

Yes, in the first of the specials, Equanimity, he addresses the row over his trans material. “You know who hates me the most?” he asks. “The transgender community.” He’s not here to express regret. He likes transgender people, he says, and supports their struggle to live equally and without fear. But he reserves the right to joke at their expense. And he does so, once more from the vantage point of a self-satisfied straight guy who finds their identity inherently comical.

Jon Richardson review – a wildly funny whinge of volcanic frustrations

January 2, 2018TheGuardian

G Live, Guildford
In his touring show The Old Man, Richardson’s peevish, mouse-that-roared routines range from loading the dishwasher to massaging his pregnant wife

‘Let’s get ready to grumble!” Where comedy meets nit-picking, Jon Richardson has carved a niche – and he’s not budging from it. Why get out of his comfort zone when, in his view, there’s always something stopping him from getting wholly into it? His touring show, The Old Man, is a two-hour whinge – tongue always slightly in cheek – at all that’s bothersome about his peevish life, from the barber’s to the internet, from weddings to cohabiting with his new wife. And it’s constantly enjoyable, rising to occasional peaks of near-heroic comic fastidiousness.

His passive-aggressive way of addressing tiny domestic disharmonies is delightfully done

Flight of the Conchords, Chris Rock and 2018’s most uproarious comedy

January 1, 2018TheGuardian

One of the world’s biggest standups does his first tour in a decade, Bridget Christie looks beyond Brexit and Maria Bamford makes a rare UK appearance

“Often more philosophical than scientific,” one critic wrote of Newman’s recent critique on brain science, Neuropolis – a book and a radio series, but initially a live standup show. Perhaps Newman’s taken the comment to heart: his new show Total Eclipse of Descartes, touring early this year, reprises the history of philosophy (“from Pythagoras to artificial intelligence by way of Pavlov’s dogs”) as it assembles a modus vivendi for our troubled present.
• 8-20 January, Soho theatre, London. Then touring.

Late Night Gimp Fight review – death, deviance and smutty sketches

January 1, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
The troupe return with gags about Tindr, Trump and kidnapping. But can you still sell puerile shock-comedy when you’re middle-aged?

The best thing about this Late Night Gimp Fight offering – the sketch group’s first in four years – is the musical numbers, the first of which gets the show off to a great start. Performed to an upstage video, it finds “head gimp” Lee Griffiths living a life of mid-30s domestic tedium, before submitting to temptation and reassembling the old team for one last, gimp-mask-clad hurrah. But can you still sell puerile shock-comedy when you’re middle-aged? I enjoyed the song, welcomed the honesty about the quintet’s predicament – and hoped it foretold a new depth where once there’d been just crude gags about smut, death and sexual deviance.

But nope: it’s the same brand of smut, sexual deviance etc as way back when, albeit with bigger production values. It’s been hailed as a triumphant return by some, including the two women next to me in row J, convulsed with delight throughout. Are they buying the Gimps’ brand of juvenile humour at face value, or is there some ironic register at play that I’m missing? Either way, these first-base gags, predicated on the inherent funniness of masturbating and soiling oneself are lost on me.

Daliso Chaponda: from Malawi to a major UK tour with gags about slavery

December 31, 2017TheGuardian

Daliso Chaponda gets laughs from topics other comedians shun. After a whirlwind year of success on Britain’s Got Talent, he explains why he does it

Jokes about famine and slavery are not the standard fodder of a comedy routine, but Daliso Chaponda revels in crossing the line.

The 38-year-old Malawian was a surprise star of Britain’s Got Talent this year, winning over millions with his cheeky but close-to-the knuckle gags about life as an African in Britain.

People like that I talk about crazy subjects like slavery and colonialism in a way that isn’t guilt tripping

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