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Don’t wait for the punchline: Jordan Brookes and comedy’s rule breakers

November 8, 2017TheGuardian

Shows that delight in flouting conventions, like Brookes’s Body of Work, make us question our expectations of standup – including whether it should all be funny

An offstage voice announces his entrance, but our host refuses to appear. That’s the first shredded expectation in Jordan Brookes’s show Body of Work, which opens at Soho theatre in London this week. Brookes is not the first to upend conventions about how comedians take the stage. Doctor Brown fans will remember his elongated entrances, tangled up in curtains, and many comics get a quick laugh from confessing that the offstage announcer is usually, in fact, the comic themselves. But when Brookes’s show debuted in Edinburgh this summer, critics – myself included – hailed the way that it demolishes so many conventions of comedy.

Katherine Ryan review – a comic in supreme command of her shtick

November 6, 2017TheGuardian

Churchill theatre, Bromley
Ryan delivers plenty of astringent one-liners in a tart set that ranges from single parenthood to Khloé Kardashian’s ‘revenge body’ and the musical Hamilton

The default comparison when describing Katherine Ryan’s work is Joan Rivers, whom she admires and whose caustic superficiality was echoed in Ryan’s earlier work. Her recent Netflix special was crammed with jokes about Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj and Bill Cosby; she devoted the first half of her 2015 show Kathbum to ruthless celebrity gossip. But it is the more personal second act of that show that she builds on in Glitter Room, which is now touring. This new set parks the A-list scuttlebutt in favour of something more personal, if just as steely: a standup set about single motherhood and the double act she’s formed with her eight-year-old daughter.

Glitter Room showcases a comic in supreme command of her shtick: hers is an imperious persona, disinclined to reveal even the slightest sign of weakness. This isn’t a set about the practical and emotional difficulties of single parenthood – it’s a defiant celebration of it. To Ryan, a boyfriend is a “luxury item” and the only good husband is a dead one. Left to their own devices, she and daughter Violet can decorate their home however they please (hence the show’s title). And who needs a lover to unzip your tight dresses when you’ve got an eight-year-old or (if desperate) an Uber driver on hand?

The urge to provoke is usually transparent: at one point, she speculates about how easy her daughter would be to traffic

Old-school Ryan bares her teeth at the end, with a riff on Melania Trump

Katherine Ryan review – a comic in supreme command of her shtick

November 6, 2017TheGuardian

Churchill theatre, Bromley
Ryan delivers plenty of astringent one-liners in a tart set that ranges from single parenthood to Khloé Kardashian’s ‘revenge body’ and the musical Hamilton

The default comparison when describing Katherine Ryan’s work is Joan Rivers, whom she admires and whose caustic superficiality was echoed in Ryan’s earlier work. Her recent Netflix special was crammed with jokes about Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj and Bill Cosby; she devoted the first half of her 2015 show Kathbum to ruthless celebrity gossip. But it is the more personal second act of that show that she builds on in Glitter Room, which is now touring. This new set parks the A-list scuttlebutt in favour of something more personal, if just as steely: a standup set about single motherhood and the double act she’s formed with her eight-year-old daughter.

Glitter Room showcases a comic in supreme command of her shtick: hers is an imperious persona, disinclined to reveal even the slightest sign of weakness. This isn’t a set about the practical and emotional difficulties of single parenthood – it’s a defiant celebration of it. To Ryan, a boyfriend is a “luxury item” and the only good husband is a dead one. Left to their own devices, she and daughter Violet can decorate their home however they please (hence the show’s title). And who needs a lover to unzip your tight dresses when you’ve got an eight-year-old or (if desperate) an Uber driver on hand?

The urge to provoke is usually transparent: at one point, she speculates about how easy her daughter would be to traffic

Old-school Ryan bares her teeth at the end, with a riff on Melania Trump

Ken Dodd at 90: the rib-tickling genius is still crazy after all these years

November 4, 2017TheGuardian

With a gag for every occasion, the tattyfilarious comic clocks up 50,000 miles a year performing his epic standup shows. He talks about stage fright, playing Yorick for ‘Sir Kenneth All-Bran’ and taking on the audience like a gladiator

Is theatre the best rejuvenating pill on the market? I’ve recently talked to a sprightly, 92-year-old Peter Brook and seen the 90-year-old playwright Peter Nichols hold an audience spellbound. I’m also recovering from two extraordinary encounters with Ken Dodd, who turns 90 next week: one was a private lunch in Liverpool, the other a public lunch in London where Sir Ken was lauded by members of the British Music Hall Society. On both occasions, I got a glimpse into the transformative power of comedy. As Ken said to me: “I’m told that before I go out on stage, I look my age. Once I’m there, I suddenly turn into a 32-year-old.”

I was in the church choir – till they found out where the noise was coming from

How many men does it take to change a toilet roll? I don’t know. It’s never been done

Paul Chowdhry: ‘When I was 15, I wore snakeskin-patterned trousers with pride’

November 3, 2017TheGuardian

The standup comic on the things that make him laugh the most, from people falling over to his dadMr Chowdhry, AKA my dad. In my lifetime he has provided me with countless material. My surroundings are an integral part of my comedy, which he unintention…

Don’t go there? Standups on Weinstein, taboos – and the gags they regret

November 3, 2017TheGuardian

Is it ever OK for comedians to joke about sexual assault? Is there such a thing as ‘too soon’? Margaret Cho, Doug Stanhope, David Cross and other fearless comics on the fine line between funny and offensive

Last month, as accusations against Harvey Weinstein began to flood in, James Corden stepped on stage at a black-tie event in Los Angeles and joked about the film producer’s alleged sexual assaults. “It’s a beautiful night here in LA,” he said. “So beautiful, Harvey Weinstein has already asked tonight up to his hotel to give him a massage.”

Two days later, after a barrage of criticism, Corden apologised. He is one of many comedians who have attempted to engage with a contentious topic only to have the move wildly backfire. It requires huge skill to take on a taboo subject and even then it’s still a minefield. Lenny Bruce was arrested many times for breaking obscenity laws, for saying things like “jack me off” and “motherfucker”. He was eventually convicted in 1964. One routine, which suggested that men will cop off with anything, included the phrase “go come in a chicken”. In 2003, he received a posthumous pardon.

I don’t say ‘faggot’ any more – even though I have defended the use of it in the past

Lefty Scum: Josie Long and the protest jokers serenading the Labour faithful

November 2, 2017TheGuardian

Can funny songs change the world? Jonny & the Baptists and Grace Petrie join Josie Long for a spirited night of comedy that imagines nationalising the queen’s swans and banning Daily Mail readers from seeing their grandchildren

Prospects have changed dramatically for UK lefties over the last six months. As recently as spring, leftwing politics was strictly for masochists, as the Labour party – according to received wisdom – set its course for electoral oblivion. Now, it’s the government in waiting, even after losing that June election. “I know we lost,” says protest singer Grace Petrie on stage tonight. “But it was my favourite one we’ve lost.”

A bleary agent of chaos: Tony Slattery returns to live impro

November 1, 2017TheGuardian

The charismatic Whose Line Is It Anyway? star is a blithely uninhibited lord of misrule at a new improvisation night in London

On the way to Slattery Night Fever, the new weekend impro night featuring ex-Whose Line Is It Anyway? man Tony, I read two old interviews with its star. One was from 15 years ago, when Slattery was just emerging, it seemed, from a breakdown that derailed his career. The other was from this summer, when he ventured back to the Edinburgh fringe with the Whose Line Is It? team. In each instance, the interviewer wrote about being reduced to tears by how low Slattery fell – and by his resilience. I’d not quite registered the extent of his difficulties – with mental health, drugs, alcohol. The lurid stories Slattery has to tell – chucking his possessions into the Thames, lying naked under a car, being bitten by rats – almost beggar belief.

Tim Minchin: ‘If you ask Mum who was the most trouble, she’d say it was me’

October 27, 2017TheGuardian

The comedian, actor and musician on being part of a strong, close family, his parents’ high expectations, and discovering he could write good riffs

My granddad had a 1,500-acre hobby farm that he had built up from scratch in Western Australia, so my siblings and I spent our childhoods going there a lot. That place – and the beach – was a huge part of our lives. I would define myself as someone who had a completely idyllic childhood. Except, of course, that childhood’s complicated!

I was the middle of three children and then the second of four kids when my little sister came along, when I was 10. We all got along, and were expected to do so. We had periods of arguing, but it is a real privilege being part of a gang. I guess that is something I worry about with my kids – that there are only two of them [Minchin and his wife, Sarah, have two children, Violet, 11, and Caspar, eight]. We kids did a lot together, so we never found a reason to reject each other’s choices. I guess it is an affirmation of our relationships – why wouldn’t we want to be with each other?

Related: Tim Minchin: My life as a dad

With the piano, I had that insatiable need to prove myself

Frank Skinner’s impro odyssey: should we expect more for a fiver?

October 27, 2017TheGuardian

The master comedian’s off-the-cuff routine gets more laughs than most scripted standup. But he’s hardly breaking sweat. Will Skinner ever pull out all the stops?

Is Frank Skinner a restless standup comedian, or a lazy one? Since he returned to live shows a decade ago, he’s tried on a few guises. His 2013 show Man in a Suit promised a new, more sophisticated Skinner. Before that, a Credit Crunch Cabaret in the West End cast him as an old-school variety MC. Now, aged 60, he’s embarking on his third stint at Soho theatre in The Man With No Show, for which he steps on stage without a script and improvises an hour’s worth of standup.

He’s expert at including us in his thought processes: the self-delight at a gag nailed

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