Available online With weariness and seething frustration, the comedian sounds off in style about gender inequality and sexismThe starting point of Jen Brister’s 2018 show Meaningless, now available online from Soho theatre, is that the Bright…
Continue ReadingHannah Gadsby made butchness cool again. Now a crop of queer comics are channelling their inner bloke – and getting back to boots, quiffs and tachesSarah Keyworth has, she says, a “weird kind of relationship with masculinity”. She appears confident in …
Continue ReadingUnderbelly Cowgate, EdinburghA Romanov raised by wolves meets a struggling Lancashire boy in a memoir dipped in glamour and pulsating to powerpopThere’s a well-travelled road from boy- or girlband glory to solo success. So why shouldn’t it be open to a…
Continue ReadingThe Brits may be grappling with Brexit, still. But give ’em this much credit. They’re showing U.S. up with respect to improving the working conditions for women in TV comedy. Saskia Schuster, the head of comedy programming for Britain’…
Continue ReadingThey were a couple doing a performance about women, sex and bodily fluids. Then they broke up – and made it more explicit. Meet the duo behind HotterThe pants arrived today. They’re bright pink with the word HOTTER emblazoned on them in red letters. “W…
Continue ReadingThey were a couple doing a performance about women, sex and bodily fluids. Then they broke up – and made it more explicit. Meet the duo behind HotterThe pants arrived today. They’re bright pink with the word HOTTER emblazoned on them in red letters. “W…
Continue ReadingMisogyny is behind the criticism of the Saturday Night Live comedian’s relationship with Kate BeckinsaleQuiz time! Put your calculators away, please, I have a maths problem designed to test every inch of your natural intelligence. Ready? Here we go: Pe…
Continue ReadingO2 Academy, Newcastle Ill-judged jokes and a lack of wit and grit make for a tedious set from one of the queens on RuPaul’s seriesIn an interview with Rolling Stone, drag queen Trixie Mattel said she was taken aback by the positive response to her uniq…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
The LGBTQ+ standup twists gender into new shapes in a fringe debut that feels like a great intro to a fresh comic personality
Should we be disowning words like “boys” and “girls” – or broadening what those words are allowed to mean? Sarah Keyworth is in an interesting position to discuss the question. She’s LGBTQ+, even if she seldom lingers beyond the first letter. As a solo-show debutante, nominated for best newcomer at the Comedy awards, she’s part of generation pulling gender into new shapes. And her adolescence was blighted by bullying because she didn’t conform to stereotypes of what a girl should be.
Such is the stuff of Dark Horse – a maiden fringe hour that (as per convention) sets out Keyworth’s stall, but without a hint of navel-gazing. For that, we’ve got Roly to thank – he’s one of two well-heeled children she’s nannied for the last four years. Latterly, Roly emerges as the show’s subject and star, as Keyworth sees her mafia levels of infant confidence eroded by the pressure never to be “bossy”, far less a “slut”. Like Cora Bissett’s What Girls Are Made Of, Dark Horse is determined to let girls fearlessly be girls. Keyworth risks overarticulating the point, and there’s no need: her show could scarcely be better constructed to express it.
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
Amid the garish sex comedy, the standup provocateur makes a striking effort to embrace the complexity of gender politics
Those who shoot from the hip can easily shoot themselves in the foot, but Fin Taylor seems happy to take that risk. Taylor is one of those (straight, male) provocateur comics whose fearless plain speaking can shade into shock-jockery. But he’s a lively watch and often worth listening to – in recent years on the subjects of race and leftwing tribalism, and now – hold on to your hats! – on post-#MeToo gender politics.
When Harassy Met Sally isn’t a delicate take on our current moment, but alongside the missteps and highly debatable claims, there is some worthwhile thinking. And – in lieu, perhaps, of trigger warnings – Taylor has devised an amusing way to signal when his hot takes are about to get hotter to handle.
Related: ‘Why did the lefty cross the road?’ How liberal Edinburgh comics are panning PC
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