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Ali Siddiq review – charisma and hard-won authenticity from an ex-con

October 30, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
The US standup, who spent six years in a Texas prison, delivers an accomplished set drawing on his misspent youth

One in three black men in the US will spend time in jail. So it’s safe to assume that – at any given moment – there’s major untapped talent stuck behind those bars. Step forward Ali Siddiq, who spent six years in a Texas prison for selling drugs, and is now a hot-property comic.

For 15 years, Siddiq didn’t address prison in his act. Then, last year, the 45-year-old performed It’s Bigger Than These Bars to inmates at Bell County Jail, Texas, broadcast as his first hour-long special for Comedy Central. Tonight’s show draws on that material, and proves Siddiq to be an accomplished, authoritative standup.

Dave Chappelle’s secret gig proves rude health of black British comedy

October 26, 2018TheGuardian

After his sellout shows with Jon Stewart, the US star hosted a free night in London featuring local acts and a raucous slew of close-to-the-bone material

“I see a white man,” said Dave Chappelle to the intimate audience at the Backyard Comedy Club, London, on Wednesday. “Two, three, four … oh my God, 10 white people. I’ll start the bidding at £200.” The room erupted and it was clear just from seeing the crowd that this was going to be nothing like the two shows that Chappelle had co-headlined with Jon Stewart earlier in the week at the Royal Albert Hall.

The secret event was orchestrated by British comedian Kojo Anim, whose club Comedy Funhouse in the West End played a vital role in the development of the black British comedy in the 00s. It was also where Chappelle first engaged with the British comedy scene.

Mo the Comedian’s got his show coming but where are the sitcoms, where are the sketch shows?

Elis James: ‘I once got heckled by a woman shouting: I’d like to be the mayor of Penzance!’

October 26, 2018TheGuardian

As the standup and co-host of the Elis James and John Robins Show takes their new book on tour, he talks about the things that make him laugh the mostI supported Rhod Gilbert in 2008. He was breathtakingly funny, every night. I also think Daniel Kitson…

Dave Chappelle and Jon Stewart review – sharp satire at America’s expense

October 22, 2018TheGuardian

Royal Albert Hall, London
The world-renowned pair team up with comics Mo Amer and Michelle Wolf to tackle Trump, the opioid crisis and gun violence in a night which delivers big laughs

Plenty of comics critique Donald Trump. Few until now have been greeted with cries of “Run for president!”. Such is the stature of tonight’s American headliners, Dave Chappelle and – the president-not-quite-elect in question – Jon Stewart. I’m not sure this level of reverence is ideal for comedy. But – give or take a self-mythologising moment, most of them in the post-show Q&A – Chappelle and Stewart keep it at arm’s length, delivering strong sets about the state of their nation, with peppy support from compatriots Mo Amer and Michelle Wolf.

There certainly is a statesmanlike quality to Stewart’s 40 minutes, which prove he’s got standup chops while staying resolutely on left-liberal message. It’s textbook stuff, starting with jokes about how he looks (“Jews age like avocados”) then broaching one by one the racism, sexism and gun violence that exercise his Daily Show fanbase. Some jokes are old hat, such as the one about Leviticus, homophobia and shellfish, or the one about Obama’s un-American name. (Stewart argues persuasively that Obama’s, not Trump’s, was the anomalous presidency in US history.) Some are neatly done, like the switchback that makes a mockery of the safeguards around buying firearms.

Fin Taylor: ‘The funniest sketch I’ve ever seen? Anything from Big Train’

October 19, 2018TheGuardian

The Whitey McWhiteface and Lefty Tighty Righty Loosey standup on the things that make him laugh the most

Mat Ewins’s Edinburgh show in 2017 is hard to top. He is one of my closest friends in comedy and, as we started out together, I must qualify this by saying that, over the course of the last decade, he is also responsible for some of the worst standup I have ever seen.

The Lost Disc review – tall tale of a great Glastonbury bootleg

October 15, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
Will Adamsdale shapeshifts to play a crooner, a troubadour and a country singer in an ambitious mockumentary show

‘Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician,” Kurt Vonnegut once said, and comedy isn’t short of examples, from Ricky Gervais playing as David Brent with Foregone Conclusion to Jack Black’s Tenacious D and the Mighty Boosh’s heavy Camden shtick.

For something more subtle, try The Lost Disc, in which mild-mannered Perrier award winner Will Adamsdale shapeshifts into Roger LeFevre (a folk troubadour), Tony Noel (a jazz crooner who sings Christmas songs year-round) and AP Williams (a country singer). In The Lost Disc, fictional former 6 Music DJ Stu Morecambe is on the hunt for an apocryphal bootleg of a performance by LeFevre, Noel and Williams at Glastonbury 1985.

The Lost Disc is essentially two shows in one, then – something which ultimately undermines its various delights. The bulk of it is devoted to the three musicians, with Adamsdale superb as he twists himself with minimal exertion into effectively mimicking Dylan and Donovan, then Tony Bennett and finally Johnny Cash. With each performer, we are sent down a backstory rabbit hole, partly for the sake of pure adventure but also to shore up the over-engineered narrative. The original songs – written by Adamsdale, Ed Gaughan and Chris Branch and performed on stage alongside the London Snorkelling Team – are mightily impressive and bring some warmth to this tall tale. And as well as Adamsdale’s discreet style of star quality, the supporting cast is excellent, notably the versatile Gaughan.

The Lost Disc is at Soho theatre, London, until 27 October.

Rob Brydon: I Am Standing Up review – clowning crooner’s homecoming gig

October 12, 2018TheGuardian

Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff
Brydon beats a well-trodden path through crowd work, gags about middle-aged decline and pitch-perfect impressions

“Some people have said this show is more honest than funny,” Rob Brydon tells us at the start of this homecoming gig. Never was a less honest word spoken. Brydon is many things – several of them are on show this evening – but heart-on-sleeve isn’t one of them. Whether he’s playing the clown, crooner or chronicler of midlife indignity, it’s not to reveal anything significant about himself, but to amuse us. Paying tribute to his pal Ronnie Corbett, he recalls growing up in Port Talbot a devotee of 70s light entertainment. It’s a tradition into which this touring show fits as neatly as an imaginary ball into Eric Morecambe’s paper bag.

It’s part variety, part celebrity appearance and not much standup comedy. The first third is crowd-work, as Brydon garlands his audience with near-the-knuckle abuse about their dress sense and decrepitude. Comedy-wise, it doesn’t go much beyond that – but at least the usual barbs about crap local towns are distinguished here by Brydon’s first-hand knowledge. The central section finds the 53-year-old lamenting his bodily decline. He pisses weakly; he farts prodigiously. As does his sleeping wife: “I got out of the bed,” says Brydon, “I stood up, and I applauded!”

At Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, until 13 October.

Eleanor Morton: ‘I drank two litres of Irn Bru in 40 minutes and saw God’

October 12, 2018TheGuardian

The Scottish standup, writer, actor and member of comedy group Weirdos on the things that make her laugh the most

Maybe Key and Peele’s Cat Poster? I can’t think of a single one of their sketches I don’t laugh at.

Joanna Lumley: It’s All About Me review – Ab Fab gags and Trump tales

October 11, 2018TheGuardian

Birmingham Symphony Hall
The veteran comic’s enduring ability to captivate a crowd saves a best-of evening that occasionally descends into tedium

They’re a real pop-will-eat-itself phenomenon, these live shows by TV personalities. As with Griff Rhys Jones a few months back, so now with Joanna Lumley: a small-screen celeb taking to the stage to talk through clips of things we’ve already seen them do on TV (top-price tickets: £62.50). They seldom make for gripping live performance, and sometimes – tonight, for example – descend into tedious love-ins, as Lumley fields written questions (“Will you marry me?”, “Can I have a kiss?”) submitted by her crowd.

The entire second act is given over to these questions, mediated by Lumley’s sometime TV producer Clive Tulloh. You might think the Q&A format would occasion spontaneity on Lumley’s part. And so it does, to a very small degree. The rest, though, is contrivance, as the audience’s questions are corralled to fit around her precooked anecdotes and clips.

Joanna Lumley: It’s All About Me is touring until 11 November.

Griefcast’s Cariad Lloyd: ‘Laughter? It’s about survival. It’s about living’

October 10, 2018TheGuardian

After her standup success and podcast about death, the comic’s next step was obvious: starring in a cancer-ward romcom

It wasn’t, I assume, the toughest decision in the history of casting. Who you gonna call, Finborough theatre, to star in your new play about a comedian and improviser grieving her dead sister and tending to her dying mum? A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York City (yup, that’s the title) could have been written for Cariad Lloyd: comic, improviser and creator of Griefcast, the award-winning podcast about death. Talk about typecasting. Getting to grips with the role of Karla was hard, says Lloyd, “because I had to keep reminding myself, OK, this is where she’s not me.”

In fact, the play is a 2016 off-Broadway success, whose writer, Halley Feiffer, is now working on a new Jim Carrey sitcom. Its maiden UK production coaxed Lloyd back to theatre after years in comedy, improv and, latterly, parenting. “I’d wanted to do a play again for ages,” she tells me over tea on the afternoon of Funny Thing’s opening night. “But initially, because of the baby” – her daughter is 22 months old – “I wanted to say no. Then I read the script and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s really funny. It was annoying, but the part was just really funny.”

A Funny Thing Happened… is at the Finborough theatre, London, until 27 October.

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