‘It still frightens me’: Tommy Tiernan on 25 years in comedy, from the Perrier to Derry Girls

The titan of Irish comics is on a roll after his sitcom and chatshow success, but he is still excited and overwhelmed by the art of standup‘The older you get,” asks Tommy Tiernan, “do you get lazy, and complacent? Or do you get more joyfully reckless? …

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Kojo Anim review – BGT star on fame, faith and fatherhood

Fairfield Halls, LondonIn his show Taxi Tour, the comic from last year’s Britain’s Got Talent offers only standard-issue middle-aged standup Kojo Anim was a star of the black standup circuit for years, but “Britain’s Got Talent changed my life,” he tel…

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Peter Kay announces comeback with Dance for Life charity shows

Comedian returns to stage three years after cancelling his UK tour for undisclosed family reasonsThe comedian Peter Kay is set to return to the stage, three years after cancelling all of his projects due to “unforeseen family circumstances”. The 46-yea…

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From first love to unfollowing – culture that sums up romance in 2020

A book redefining marriage, a riotous show about dating, the secret meanings of breakup songs and a sex show to put your back out … ahead of Valentine’s Day, our critics pick works that sum up passion in our turbulent timesFrom Adam and Eve in the book…

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The Chase’s Paul Sinha: ‘I’m going for laughs in bleak places’

The gameshow star and former GP on how he wrote his ‘career best’ standup material after getting married – and being diagnosed with Parkinson’s‘You don’t expect the most eventful year of your life to be in your late 40s,” says Paul Sinha. “No one expec…

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Eddie Izzard on Terry Jones: he was the guardian of the Monty Python spirit

Jones was uninhibited, energetic, kind, curious – and a great person to spend time with, says the comedian Read Peter Bradshaw’s appreciation of Terry JonesI was quite young when Monty Python came down the airwaves into my brain. When the Python casset…

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‘Indecently funny in every way’ – Peter Cook’s legacy by Eddie Izzard, Lucy Porter and more

His influence is everywhere – but is the great, groundbreaking comedian being forgotten? Twenty-five years after his death, we reassess his impact The reports of Peter Cook’s death on 9 January 1995 had no difficulty arriving at a consensus about him, …

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Congratulations, you played yourself: comics who fictionalise their lives

Larry David took the role of “Larry David” onscreen. But how close are such characters to real life? Three comics starring as versions of themselves reveal where they draw the lineFans of the Canadian standup Mae Martin could probably tell you a lot ab…

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Count Arthur Strong review – fuzzy logic and cosmic nonsense

Leicester Square theatre, LondonAt every turn, the confused ‘astronomer-in-chief’ gives us something to marvel at – from crap ventriloquism to the films of ‘Dustbin Hoffman’At least in the colloquial sense, Count Arthur Strong has always been a space c…

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Ardal O’Hanlon: ‘Comedy never used to be a career – it was for slackers with ukuleles’

The star of Father Ted and Death in Paradise on his ‘unstable’ personality, his revealing new standup show – and the terrifying bomb scare he endured as a childArdal O’Hanlon is too embarrassed to have his picture taken in the restaurant where we’ve ju…

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