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Bigfoot and me: Roddy Bottum on his avant garde monster opera

August 5, 2017TheGuardian

He was one of the first openly gay men in metal. Now, after losing everything in a house fire, Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum is bankrolling an opera featuring crystal-meth arias and interspecies duets

In a top-floor flat overlooking Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, Roddy Bottum is talking me through his fringe show Sasquatch: The Opera. Bottum is the keyboard player in Faith No More, whose twisted take on hard rock propelled them to global success in the 90s, and he’s at the festival with a cast of opera singers and experimenters from New York’s avant garde performance art scene. Though it’s a few days until curtain-up, they want to give me a preview. In true fringe style they perform four scenes right here in the living room, to music played on his laptop.

Did Axl talk to me about being gay? Not so much

Paul Chowdhry: ‘People write this abuse to me, and I’ve just got to take it?’

August 4, 2017August 4, 2017TheGuardian

He’s not a TV favourite, but the actor and comedian has built one of the most diverse audiences of any current standup, partly through the subversive use of social media. Now he’s written his most personal show yet – and is booked to play Wembley

We are surveying, from the terrace, Paul Chowdhry’s garden, which is quite large (for London) and very neat. He has, he confesses, a man who comes to help him keep on top of it. That’s posh, I say. Having considered himself working-class all his life, Chowdhry is now considering whether he’s middle-class. He does have hummus in the kitchen, I point out. “And it’s organic,” he says, deadpan.

You may know Chowdhry from television, but possibly not. He doesn’t have a huge TV profile – he’s never done Mock the Week; he’s only done two editions of Live at the Apollo. Bookers rarely ask him on their panel shows (just one episode of 8 out of 10 Cats). He hosted the final series of Channel 4’s Stand Up for the Week, but his audience – one of the most diverse audiences of any current standup – has been largely built through word of mouth and social media, particularly the videos he makes and posts. He has done two sold-out tours, What’s Happening White People? in 2012, and 2015’s PC’s World, both of which were filmed for DVD. His new tour, which takes in Edinburgh, is about to start and he has had to add dates to cope with the demand. It includes two dates at Wembley Arena.

Ingrid Oliver: ‘I thought I’d cheer myself up by dressing like a Bavarian barmaid’

August 4, 2017TheGuardian

The actor and sketch show comic opens up about the things that make her laugh the most, from The Thick of It to German nipples

I love the Nazi sketch by Mitchell and Webb. Two Nazis worrying about the prevalence of skulls on their uniforms leading to the brilliantly plaintive question: “Hans, are we the baddies?”

Edinburgh festival 2017: 10 shows to see

August 4, 2017TheGuardian

A puppet blockbuster, a Bigfoot opera and a Northern Soul dance marathon all feature in the lineup of the 70th Edinburgh festivalEdinburgh Playhouse Continue reading…

Comic Rose Matafeo: ‘I definitely probably have a moderate amount of talent’

August 3, 2017TheGuardian

Since first picking up the mic at 15, the standup has tap-danced, done Aerosmith karaoke and starred in her own TV show. So why does she want to disappear offstage?

Was there ever a greater discrepancy between talent and confidence? Rose Matafeo, at 25, is an award-winning standup, a TV star in her native New Zealand and made a striking Edinburgh fringe debut last summer. That show wasn’t perfect, but Matafeo’s force of personality – dominant, dorky-excitable – was a sight to behold. Here was a comedian whose power couldn’t be denied. Except by Matafeo herself, it turns out, whose stellar charisma on stage is matched by subterranean self-esteem off it.

This becomes clear over coffee as Matafeo girds herself for a return to Edinburgh with her new show, Sassy Best Friend. When I ask what it is about her comedy that is winning such acclaim, Matafeo squirms with discomfort. “That’s the most uncomfortable position to put someone like me in,” she says. “I’m not going to be forced to answer that.”

Sam Simmons review – sublime oddity from aggressively silly standup

August 2, 2017TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
By his own standards, the 2015 Edinburgh Comedy award-winner plays it relatively straight in his new show – but there are satisfyingly daft moments

‘There are pockets of joy,” says Sam Simmons, peering out over his audience, but he also claims to see mainly confused faces. This is what the aggressively silly Aussie comic does: berates us for our under-appreciation, feigns his own failure. It’s a tactic, of course, to emphasise his weirdness, to ratchet up the absurdity and alienation of an already absurd act. And it hasn’t done Simmons any harm: he won the Edinburgh Comedy award two summers ago, and is, if tonight’s mantra is to be believed, “doing really well overseas”. (He’s now based in LA.)

It’s a risky tactic, though – in that, if you tell an audience often enough that they are not enjoying themselves, they might start to believe it. That was partly my experience at this performance of his new show A-K, when Simmons’s compulsive commentary on how his jokes were being received overshadowed the jokes themselves. That left the show, which arrives at the Edinburgh festival next week, a bit disjointed. It doesn’t help that this is Simmons’s most loosely conceived offering: there are fewer props, gimmicks and convoluted set-pieces, and it more closely resembles standup than the carnivals of oddity he has served up in the past.

Rhys James: ‘All my favourite books are written by Steve Martin’

July 28, 2017TheGuardian

The angst-mining millennial standup on the things that make him laugh the most, from Frank Skinner to tight vests

Frank Skinner’s routine on jealousy changed how I viewed standup. It has everything. Rage, empathy, filth, overapplied logic, tragedy and an exceptional amount of jokes. And the pacing is perfect. It’s five minutes long and he spends four of it on his knees barely even engaging with the audience. It’s like they’re not even there. This is one man going through his crisis for his own sake, not ours, but thankfully we’ve snuck into the therapy session.

Stars from comedy’s punk past return to the Edinburgh fringe

July 22, 2017TheGuardian

They were at the vanguard of political comedy. Now Alexei Sayle, Craig Ferguson and Sue Perkins are heading back to the festival, as it celebrates its 70th birthday

Unknown talents and student hopefuls head for the Edinburgh festival fringe at this time of year, aiming to break into the entertainment industry. This summer, however, a loud and anarchic blast from comedy’s punk past is also on the bill.

A slew of stars, including Alexei Sayle, a comic hero of the 1980s, and Sue Perkins, who first made it big at the festival 20 or so years ago, are returning to try their luck as the fringe celebrates its 70th birthday.

Pun for your life! Punsters are rocking New York’s comedy clubs

July 22, 2017TheGuardian

They are the most reviled form of joke, but puns turn out to be comedy dynamite

When I was 17 years old, my classmate Jill O’Doyle asked whether I’d seen Titanic yet. It was the beginning of third period, the movie had just opened and I had opinions about its star.

“Titanic?” I said, my lips curling into the fat-kid equivalent of a Billy Idol snarl. “You mean with Leonardo DiCraprio?” Jill looked about 1,000 detentions exhausted by this response but, to her credit, she ignored what I’d said. Our chat was over. As far as I can remember, this was my introduction to how puns generally go over out in the world.

‘Titanic?’ I said, my lips curling into a fat-kid Billy Idol snarl. ‘You mean with Leonardo DiCraprio?’

Phil Nichol: ‘There’s something strangely emotive about vomiting’

July 21, 2017TheGuardian

The Edinburgh award-winning Canadian comic on the things that make him laugh the most, from suede clogs to Phil Kay

Phil Kay once turned a 700-strong crowd in the Queens Hall, Edinburgh into an improvised wedding. Funniest show I’ve ever seen. We were crying with laughter and in awe of the sheer audacity of this mad mess of ideas. Brilliant.

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