TheGuardian – Page 218 – ComedyNews.Org :: Comedy News Organization

Marc Maron: ‘I’m familiar with coke, anger, bullying, selfishness’

June 16, 2018TheGuardian

The Glow star and hit podcaster talks drugs, divorces and his ‘horrible’ feud with Jon Stewart

The night before I meet Marc Maron, I go to his standup show in London. These days Maron is best known for his hugely popular podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, which he started in 2009, and on which he has interviewed everyone from Barack Obama to Keith Richards and Chris Rock. He conducts most of the interviews from his garage in LA, and they are almost always revealing and always entertaining. In 2010, Robin Williams talked about his depression and addictions, four years before he killed himself. Obama talked about the racism and African American stereotypes that shaped his sense of self. WTF now gets 7m downloads a month.

But in the 90s, when I first discovered him, Maron was not known for his empathetic dialogues; rather, he was seen as an aggressive monologuer. Back then, he was a struggling standup, with a style that was often described as angry and arrogant – or, as his friend Louis CK once put it, “a huge amount of insecurity and craziness”. He was known as a comedian’s comedian, which is a nice way of saying the industry liked him, but audiences didn’t.

Some of my behaviour was not great. It was emotionally abusive

The food stuff is my deepest issue, more than the drugs. I guess it’s about self-loathing and control

Doug Stanhope review – grim, thrilling and appallingly funny

June 8, 2018TheGuardian

Brixton Academy, London
One of the sharpest minds and loosest cannons in comedy is back with material about rape, race and #MeToo

“Is it wrong to use racism to try and stop gang rape?”

American standup Doug Stanhope is back in the UK and, yes, that sound you can hear is sacred cows bellowing. This near two-hour set showcases the best, and flirts with the worst, of this bleakest, blackest comic. Sometimes it is grim, sometimes you’ve just got to hold your nerve, and occasionally it’s thrilling to be back in a room with one of the sharpest minds and loosest cannons in comedy.

Doug Stanhope review – grim, thrilling and appallingly funny

June 8, 2018TheGuardian

Brixton Academy, London
One of the sharpest minds and loosest cannons in comedy is back with material about rape, race and #MeToo

“Is it wrong to use racism to try and stop gang rape?”

American standup Doug Stanhope is back in the UK and, yes, that sound you can hear is sacred cows bellowing. This near two-hour set showcases the best, and flirts with the worst, of this bleakest, blackest comic. Sometimes it is grim, sometimes you’ve just got to hold your nerve, and occasionally it’s thrilling to be back in a room with one of the sharpest minds and loosest cannons in comedy.

Sophie Willan: ‘The funniest meal I’ve ever eaten? A leftover blob of MDMA’

June 8, 2018TheGuardian

The comedian, writer and author on the things that make her laugh the most

Not the Nine O’Clock News is timeless. My favourite one is Gerald the Gorilla with Rowan Atkinson. It’s genius, silly stuff.

Sophie Willan: ‘The funniest meal I’ve ever eaten? A leftover blob of MDMA’

June 8, 2018TheGuardian

The comedian, writer and author on the things that make her laugh the most

Not the Nine O’Clock News is timeless. My favourite one is Gerald the Gorilla with Rowan Atkinson. It’s genius, silly stuff.

‘The world of comedy has changed’: how queer comics are making their mark in America

June 8, 2018TheGuardian

While mainstream visibility is still limited, LGBT comics are moving past cliches and homophobic roadblocks to take their place in the US comedy scene

Twenty-five years ago, Lea DeLaria became the first openly gay comic to appear on American television when she performed on The Arsenio Hall Show. “It’s the 1990s,” she announced with characteristic gusto. “It’s hip to be queer, and I’m a bi-i-i-i-ig dyke!” At a time when homophobia was rampant, forcing queer comics to traffic in innuendo when discussing their sexualities onstage, DeLaria and other out standups like Kate Clinton and Scott Thompson were radically candid and brazenly political, sometimes at their own expense. On Arsenio, where she was invited back twice more that year, DeLaria, who now plays Carrie “Big Boo” Black on Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, uttered the words dyke, fag and queer 47 times in four minutes. “I didn’t just open the closet door,” she recalls to the Guardian. “I fucking blew that door off with a blowtorch.”

Our models of success have always been smaller, more boutique comedians

Edinburgh fringe 2018 to tackle #MeToo and celebrate Blue Peter

June 6, 2018TheGuardian

Lineup for 71st edition includes hard-hitting debuts and plenty of nostalgia

An array of provocative debuts will mix with a heavy dose of nostalgia at the 71st Edinburgh fringe festival this August, as creative takes on the #MeToo movement are performed alongside a theatrical tribute to Blue Peter, the world’s longest-running children’s TV show.

Launching the 2018 fringe programme with 3,548 shows, the most in its history, the event’s chief executive, Shona McCarthy, said: “Whether this is your first or your 50th time visiting the fringe as a performer or audience member, this is a place where new discoveries wait around every corner.”

Pieter-Dirk Uys review – South African satirist relives his apartheid clashes

June 5, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
Uys delivers an engaging memoir about his life, from 1940s Cape Town to a regime-mocking drag act

Part memoir, part nostalgia trip for white South Africans, Pieter-Dirk Uys’s new monologue is a world away from the arch satirical turns with which he made his – or rather, his alter ego Evita Bezuidenhout’s – name. There are no frills, just Uys in black, on a stool, narrating his life story from 1940s Cape Town via a London education and back to a career mocking the apartheid regime in theatre and drag. It’s performed in a low-key style, but Uys is a capable raconteur with an eventful story that shines a light on social and political history across two continents.

A long-distance friendship with Sophia Loren provides a rather improbable subplot

Stuart Laws: ‘No books are funny, unless you find a swearword in a dictionary’

June 1, 2018TheGuardian

The standup comic on the things that make him laugh the most

Harry Hill’s 2005 tour preview at a 100-seater venue in Windsor. I had no idea what a preview was but loved it. Once I gig with Harry I will have completed comedy.

Michelle Wolf: ‘It’s weird that Trump doesn’t have a sense of humour’

June 1, 2018TheGuardian

As host of the White House correspondents’ dinner, comic Michelle Wolf insulted Trump, his inner circle and the press. What happened next?

In the past 35 days, Michelle Wolf has hosted the annual White House correspondents’ dinner, scandalised Washington DC, outraged the president, run a 50-mile ultramarathon, launched her own Netflix show, and turned herself into a household name. Yet “the hardest thing I ever did in my life”, according to the comedian, was none of these, but “getting myself fired on purpose.”

Five years ago, she was working for a tech company, but knew she wanted to be a comedian. The plan was to get paid for as long as possible, while she worked on her act, until they sacked her. “I don’t like being lazy, but I was like: ‘Just do less and less work.’ I was writing jokes all day, just constantly writing jokes.” She nearly lost her nerve when she received a formal warning. “It was the worst feeling. I hate disappointing people. I almost gave up then and there.” But she stuck at the plan, and “eventually I got fired, which was great”. She celebrated with cocktails.

In standup, you tell a joke and people laugh or they don’t. On Twitter, they correct and complain

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a failure last year, but this year was an embarrassment to everyone associated with it. The filthy “comedian” totally bombed (couldn’t even deliver her lines-much like the Seth Meyers weak performance). Put Dinner to rest, or start over!

There’s this whole section of political comedy that’s just saying things we want to hear, rather than pushing our brains

We keep tuning in to everything outrageous that’s happening. We’re not watching the news but a show

People say they want honesty, but when they hear it they’re like, Oh, that was a cold slap of honesty

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