TheGuardian – Page 207 – ComedyNews.Org :: Comedy News Organization

Aziz Ansari suggests ‘wokeness’ can go too far at surprise gig

October 8, 2018TheGuardian

The US comic is cynical about competitive virtue-signalling in a show that doesn’t directly respond to allegations against him but is full of friction

What happens to men accused of sexual misconduct in the #MeToo era? Assuming their offences don’t incur legal sanction, how, if at all, might they be rehabilitated? How soon is too soon for a comeback – and what should it look like? One place that debate isn’t being staged is in Aziz Ansari’s new standup show, which made an unheralded visit to London’s Top Secret Comedy Club last night. Ansari doesn’t mention the babe.net article in January in which a woman he had dated accused the Master of None star of inappropriate behaviour, which he denied.

Some will say: why should he mention it? The Ansari accusations weren’t about workplace harassment, nor serial abuse. The details of the complaint against him seemed, to some, open to interpretation. Ansari wasn’t found guilty in the court of public opinion; at worst, it was a hung jury. In which context, why rake over the whole ugly and contentious experience in a comedy show? Ansari chooses not to do so – although those looking for clues to his feelings about it were given plenty to chew on at this work-in-progress UK outing for a set he’s recently been performing in the US.

Daliso Chaponda: ‘I got pickpocketed before a Chris Rock gig but still laughed like a maniac’

October 5, 2018TheGuardian

The Malawian standup and Britain’s Got Talent runner-up on the things that make him laugh the most

I went to Chris Rock’s Total Blackout tour. On the way, myself and comedian Tony Vino got into an altercation with some “youths” – one of whom pickpocketed me. I didn’t think anything could make me laugh after that, but a few minutes into his set I was laughing like a maniac.

Vulcan 7 review – the Young Ones meet again as old dinosaurs

October 5, 2018TheGuardian

Cambridge Arts theatre
Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer write and star in a Beckettian comedy about two past-it thesps making a sci-fi film on the edge of a volcano

Once they were The Young Ones; now they’re “a couple of old dinosaurs”. The tectonic plates have shifted and Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer are teetering on the edge of extinction. Vulcan 7, a new stage comedy written by and starring the erstwhile Vyvyan and Neil, and directed by Steve Marmion, is about two ageing actors stuck in their trailer on the slopes of an Icelandic volcano. A send-up of showbiz egos and a peek into the hollow heart of a life spent pretending to be someone else, it starts like a bad sitcom and ends like good Beckett.

The first half is all talk and dramatic stasis. We’re on the set of bargain-bucket sci-fi movie, Vulcan 7, starring old-school thesp Hugh Delavois (Planer) as a butler, and loose cannon Gary Savage (Edmondson) in an undignified costume as an alien insectoid. The pair have previous: they went to Rada together and shared girlfriends before their careers diverged: for Gary, movie stardom and self-destruction; for Hugh, character parts, bourgeois life and an MBE.

Nish Kumar review – apoplectic state-of-the-nation standup

October 4, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
The Mash Report host unleashes a high-octane, self-mocking political show brimming with exasperation and anger

You can tell it’s been two years since Nish Kumar’s last live show – as long as it’s possible, surely, for this most vociferous of comics to keep a lid on things. The first 10 minutes of It’s in Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves are like a dam bursting: he’s got so much to say about the state of our benighted nation, so many apoplectic opinions to advance. It’s a cracking opening, as the Mash Report man hurls himself at the government’s handling of Brexit (“an Ocean’s Eleven of rank incompetence”), the revelation that makes sense of Jacob Rees-Mogg, and the high British Asian vote to leave the EU.

On that latter topic, members of his own family aren’t spared, and if the punchlines here are more playground abuse than Shavian wit – well, Kumar’s bad temper is part of the joke. Most of the gig is delivered at a high pitch of dismay: we’re never far from the next screech of exasperation, at “random” airport bag checks on brown people, or at the post-Office career of Ricky Gervais.

At Soho theatre, London until 4 October. Then touring until March.

Theresa May drag queens: ‘We’ve dined out on her leopard-print heels for years!’

October 2, 2018TheGuardian

Hard Brexit innuendos, frolics in fields of wheat, that strong and stable obsession … four drag queens reveal why the prime minister is camp gold

Sue Gives a Fuck

Trump that: can standups keep up with a president like this?

October 1, 2018TheGuardian

In Oh Come On, David Cross matches vulgarity with vulgarity but it’s not the only way to mock a political horror show

I’m watching David Cross, but I can’t help thinking about Brett Kavanaugh. No insult intended to Cross, but the hearings were unfolding as he performed this London gig. And of course, the Arrested Development man has skin in the game. His comedy usually includes a strand of political commentary; his wife Amber Tamblyn is a co-founder of the Time’s Up movement. And right now, one year after the dawn of #MeToo, an alleged sexual abuser was about to be nominated to America’s supreme court.

What can comedy do about that? Or at least, what can Cross do? One option is escapism, but that’s not Cross’s bag – this performance, of his touring set Oh Come On, was bound to broach Trump-era politics. And so it came to pass: in the closing 20 minutes he zeroes in on Potus, with a gag-cum-tirade about penitent Trump voters, and an inventory of increasingly baroque scenarios that might lead to the president leaving office. But Cross’s Trump material comes with a caveat. People tell him: “Trump must be great for comedy, right?” But the opposite is true. He’s hard to joke about. The reality is more absurd than any joke. The president’s outrages come too thick and fast to get purchase on: they’ve been superseded before you make it to the punchline.

Lou Sanders: Shame Pig review – lurid gags from the comedians’ comedian

September 30, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
With an abundance of eyebrow-raising anecdotes about outrageous social faux pas, the standup is terrific company

There was louder buzz around Lou Sanders’ Edinburgh fringe hour this year than her work has ever previously generated – Shame Pig was voted best show by her fellow comedians. Not only is it a fine show, from a comic with just the right distance from, and closeness to, all the self-mortifying stories she’s got to tell. But it also addresses her alcoholism and newfound sobriety. Her previous work was talked about in terms of its wildness and lack of focus. Shame Pig, by contrast, is efficient and on point, a neat hour broaching the burden of shame – as opposed to embarrassment – that Sanders (and, she argues, many women) find themselves carrying through youth and early adulthood.

At Soho theatre, London, 25-28 February.

David O’Doherty: ‘Mitch Hedberg was so funny it made me need to wee’

September 28, 2018TheGuardian

The Irish comedian, author, musician, actor and playwright on the things that make him laugh the mostI saw Mitch Hedberg in a tiny pub in Kilkenny in 1998 and it was so funny it made me need to wee. I was so afraid of missing the next joke I went with …

Trailer Park Boys: ‘Eddie Murphy got his whole routine from Richard Pryor’

September 21, 2018TheGuardian

Canadian standups Ricky, Julian and Bubbles on the things that make them laugh the most

Bubbles: Richard Pryor.
Julian: Eddie Murphy’s Delirious.
Bubbles: Yeah, and where do you think he got his whole routine from? Richard Pryor!

Bianca Del Rio: ‘Joan Rivers would make me pee with laughter’

September 14, 2018TheGuardian

The American drag queen, comedian, actor and winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race on the things that make her laugh the most

Tootsie with Dustin Hoffman from 1982 – I’m so old. If you’re a drag queen, you can relate to it, but also if you are an actor and you’re willing to do anything to get a job. It also shows a fabulous time in New York that doesn’t exist any more.

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