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Are you gruesome tonight? The comedy hit splicing Evil Dead 2 and Elvis songs

November 14, 2017TheGuardian

In Sam Raimi’s horror classic, a man is tormented by demons and his own severed hand. All the story needed was a few tunes by the king of rock’n’roll, says Rob Kemp

By day, he was a mild-mannered examinations officer at a school near Wolverhampton. By night, he was a chainsaw-wielding maniac with a soft spot for Elvis numbers. No, that’s not a pitch for a B-movie, but the life of standup comic Rob Kemp. The 39-year-old will spend much of the next month commuting between the West Midlands and Soho theatre in London, shedding the briefcase and tie en route to re-enter the underworld of The Elvis Dead, his rock’n’roll-meets-horror one-man comedy show that became the cult hit of this summer’s Edinburgh fringe.

Hitherto, Kemp had been a specialist in “whimsical” (so he’s told) standup and was “bumping along largely unnoticed”. His only previous show, little seen, was a Dave Gorman-esque comedy lecture about hubris. The Elvis Dead (it’s a retelling of Evil Dead 2 set to the music of Elvis Presley) was dreamed up in conversation with a friend, based on Kemp’s supposed resemblance to horror icon Bruce Campbell. “There was nothing cynical about it,” he says, in case you’re thinking that the Elvis/Evil Dead mashup was a ruthlessly commercial cash-in. “I just wanted to write something that I knew my mates would enjoy.”

Louis CK: laughter ends as years of allegations dog comedy superstar

November 10, 2017November 10, 2017TheGuardian

The fallout from CK’s sexual misconduct accusations has begun, with HBO dropping his shows and colleagues condemning a man once hailed as a genius

When Louis CK first attempted standup comedy, at a 1985 open mic night in Boston, it was a disaster. He had a five-minute slot but only two minutes of material.

“It was horrible,” he told NPR 30 years later. “My whole throat constricted and … I heard this roaring in my ears. My eyes were watering. My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t control myself. And I just felt like a pile of garbage. And then I kept doing it.”

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

Funny Cow review – Maxine Peake blazes in the dark days of standup

October 11, 2017TheGuardian

Peake is hypnotically belligerent as an ambitious club performer trampling over prejudice and sticky carpets on the 1970s comedy circuit

Maxine Peake dominates the screen as producer and star of this painful, angry film written by Tony Pitts and directed by Adrian Shergold, about a fictional female club comedian fighting her way to the top, or at least the middle, in 1970s Britain.

Maybe without Peake this would have looked merely strident or chaotic; and to be frank, even with Peake, it does flirt with some age-old cliches. Comedians are traditionally given centre stage in a drama on condition that they reveal themselves to be unhappy or empty inside. But Peake gives it a fierce, blazing energy and holds everything together through the magnetic force of her performance. Jim Moir, John Bishop, Kevin Eldon and Diane Morgan provide cameos (perhaps to underline the project’s comedy credentials) and the excellent Christine Bottomley is perhaps a bit underused as Peake’s mum.

Tim Minchin: ‘The world feels a bit post-jokes’

October 8, 2017TheGuardian

The comedian-composer on his children’s book, Australia’s same-sex marriage vote and why he’s glad to be leaving Hollywood

Australian composer and comedian Tim Minchin, 42, was born in Northampton but raised in his parents’ native Perth. After an award-winning comedy career, he wrote the music and lyrics for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s global hit musical Matilda, followed by the stage musical adaptation of Groundhog Day. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Sarah, a social worker, and their two children.

Tell us about your new children’s book, When I Grow Up, which is based on the lyrics of the song from Matilda.
It’s awesome – I didn’t even have to do anything [laughs]. That’s the incredible thing about Matilda, it keeps manifesting itself in different ways. It’s profoundly gratifying to have something else beautiful put into the world that was sparked by something you wrote eight years ago.

In a global world, nationalism is a fantasy and it’s poison. It used to be appropriate but it’s not any more

The superhero and the standup: Spider-Man Tom Holland and his dad Dominic

August 19, 2017TheGuardian

The star of Marvel’s blockbuster is the subject of his father’s comedy show at the Edinburgh fringe. They discuss the art of getting laughs, sending Spidey back to school and finding the old man a part in a webslinging sequel

There is no shortage of up-and-coming comedians with famous parents at this year’s Edinburgh fringe: Elliot Steel (son of Mark), Will Hislop (son of Ian) and Ruby Wax’s daughters, Maddy and Marina Bye, are all performing. At the Voodoo Rooms venue in the New Town, the situation is a little different. Standup Dominic Holland, who recently turned 50, is in Edinburgh with a free fringe show, 24 years after winning the best newcomer award at the festival. The subject of his new set? How his success has been surpassed by that of his 21-year-old son, Tom, star of Marvel’s latest blockbuster, Spider-Man: Homecoming.

“I genuinely don’t need to be here,” Dominic states in his show, Eclipsed, with reference to his son’s lucrative webslinging contract. He describes his own gig as “indoor busking” – it’s free to get in but he holds a bucket for punters’ donations on their way out. Tom is currently filming sci-fi thriller Chaos Walking, co-starring Daisy Ridley and based on Patrick Ness’s book trilogy, but has flown in from Canada to see the show with his family. It’s a surprise for his dad and, when I meet the two of them afterwards, they whip out a phone to play the video of Dominic’s ecstatic reaction when Tom turned up that morning.

Mum must have countless Spider-Man costumes that all of us boys have worn through the years