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2017 in satire: inside Jeremy Corbyn’s trophy cabinet

December 30, 2017TheGuardian

Phil Wang takes a peek at the Labour leader’s trophies for moderate achievements as part of our comic look back at the year

• Read more from the satire special

“Afternoon, Trina!”

Trina jumped. Usually she caught the black flat cap shark-finning over the top of the allotment fence in time to prepare herself. But today he’d caught her off guard. She sighed.

Shedding a proud tear, he moved to the second shelf: Chess Club – Attendance; Rugby – Most Sick Notes; Choir – Loudest

‘Improv saved my life’: the comedy classes helping people with anxiety

December 20, 2017TheGuardian

Once the domain of aspiring performers, improv courses are increasingly being attended by students experiencing mental health problems

“Your heart’s beating faster, you feel all these eyes on you, your body reacts with panic.” No, it’s not the discarded first line of Eminem’s Lose Yourself, but Alex MacLaren’s description of how his students feel in work meetings, job interviews or even the pub. MacLaren teaches improvisational comedy at the Spontaneity Shop in London. At first, its courses attracted performers. Now, he estimates half his students are seeking help with anxiety or confidence.

It’s a trend noted by other improv teachers. In Manchester, Brainne Edge runs workshops as head of ComedySportz UK. In the past five years she’s seen the proportion of non-performers attending her courses rise to around 75%.

It teaches you to have a better link between your brain and your mouth

Jeff Garlin review – Curb Your Enthusiasm comic goes off-script

December 20, 2017TheGuardian

Larry David’s accomplice makes up for the fitfulness of a half-assembled show with infectious off-the-cuff comedy about bras, body lotions and creepy old men

‘I’m aware it’s not been the best show,” says Jeff Garlin – and he’s right. It has been some unconnected bits of material cribbed from notes – a rehearsal for a forthcoming off-Broadway run, he tells us. It should be billed as a work in progress, but isn’t: tickets start at £26. Yet it’s more fun than Garlin’s last visit to Soho, when he also used crib-sheets but was more tied to scripted routines about his over-eating. Here, the ratio of ad-libbing to rehearsed material is higher, and the Curb Your Enthusiasm man is clearly having enormous fun. For the most part, it’s infectious.

It starts oddly. I have no idea why the lights come up on Garlin chatting to UK comic Naomi Cooper (for a podcast), before surrendering the stage for five minutes to Irish standup Conor Drum. It’s that kind of gig: anything goes. Garlin identifies as an improviser, he says, more than a performer of prepared material. He’s here to try stuff out – such as dancing with his audience – and if it doesn’t all stack up, no matter. And so, his amusing off-the-cuff chat splices awkwardly with semi-rehearsed jokes, aperçus and shards of anecdotes – many of them free of context, consequence or climax. “I hate doing material,” he growls at one point. “It ruins my rhythm.” He’s not wrong.

The top 10 comedy shows of 2017

December 17, 2017TheGuardian

A virgin dominatrix whipped Edinburgh, Tim Key looked for love and Hannah Gadsby quit then won two awards. But only the snide, brutal brilliance of Frankie Boyle could triumph over the year’s horrors

• More of the best culture from 2017

Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People review – variety show for atheists returns

December 17, 2017TheGuardian

Conway Hall, London
A joyful lucky dip in which secular sermons and Christmas messages quoting Kurt Vonnegut make for a silly but rousing celebration of rationalism

It’s hard to believe this is the 10th year of Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, an endearingly shambolic, joyful lucky dip of a show described by its creator, Robin Ince, as what would happen “if the Royal Variety Show was put in a matter-transportation machine with the Royal Institution Christmas lectures”.

If this revival after a three-year hiatus lacks the headline names of its Hammersmith Apollo heyday, when Brian Cox, Richard Dawkins, Dara O’Briain and Jarvis Cocker were regulars on the bill, it still serves up a Christmas feast of eclectic performers, held together by Ince’s scattershot observations and infectious curmudgeonly enthusiasm.

Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People review – variety show for atheists returns

December 17, 2017TheGuardian

Conway Hall, London
A joyful lucky dip in which secular sermons and Christmas messages quoting Kurt Vonnegut make for a silly but rousing celebration of rationalism

It’s hard to believe this is the 10th year of Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, an endearingly shambolic, joyful lucky dip of a show described by its creator, Robin Ince, as what would happen “if the Royal Variety Show was put in a matter-transportation machine with the Royal Institution Christmas lectures”.

If this revival after a three-year hiatus lacks the headline names of its Hammersmith Apollo heyday, when Brian Cox, Richard Dawkins, Dara O’Briain and Jarvis Cocker were regulars on the bill, it still serves up a Christmas feast of eclectic performers, held together by Ince’s scattershot observations and infectious curmudgeonly enthusiasm.

The League of Gentlemen announce 2018 UK tour

December 15, 2017TheGuardian

The dark comedy foursome are to hit the road, taking new show to ‘all the wonderful local places in our increasingly local country’

Their three forthcoming reunion specials for the BBC are among this Christmas’s most anticipated television shows. Now, the League of Gentlemen have announced that they will be touring the UK for the first time in over 12 years.

The League of Gentlemen Live Again! tour starts in Sunderland on 25 August 2018, offering local entertainment for local people around the UK, culminating in three nights at London’s Eventim Apollo, from 27 to 29 September.

‘Chinese burn? We just say burn’: comics on joking about race and immigration

December 15, 2017TheGuardian

Phil Wang has a messy relationship with the British empire. Evelyn Mok felt dirty joking about her family. Kae Kurd riffs on being a refugee. Aisha Alfa was shocked to find she had a ‘black perspective’. They talk patriotism, stereotypes and stigmas

I’m a sort of half-immigrant. I was born in Stoke, where my mum is from, but we went back to Malaysia, where my dad’s from, a week after I was born. When I was 16 I moved back to the UK and have been here since. I have a complicated relationship with the British empire but I look for what connects us. Commonwealth countries share a certain sense of humour. The empire spread self-deprecation and a self-mocking attitude across the commonwealth – as well as railroads.

‘It sounds like Michael Bubbly!’ Big Shaq rates his rivals for Christmas No 1

December 15, 2017TheGuardian

The coat-obsessed Man’s Not Hot rapper has made the viral pop hit of the year – and could now be the Christmas No 1. So does he think he can beat Ed Sheeran, Mariah Carey and Gregory Porter?

Amid the usual sleigh bells, string sections and festive lyrics in this year’s Christmas No 1 race comes a man in a big coat, adamant that he is not overheating. Big Shaq’s Man’s Not Hot has become a snowballing breakthrough hit during the last few months: a parody of hardnut London rappers who use ridiculous slang, impersonate gunshots, and never, ever take off their coats. The knowingly witless aggression of its lyrics – “take man’s Twix by force” – makes them endlessly quotable, earning the track more than 100m views on YouTube and 74m streams on Spotify. It’s even been repeated in parliament by Peterborough MP Fiona Onasanya.

Sofie Hagen’s new show is raw, urgent and confessional … but is it comedy?

December 14, 2017TheGuardian

Having explored her depression and anxiety, the Danish comic is tackling childhood trauma. How do standups amuse an audience if even they don’t find their subject funny?

Her first show, Bubblewrap, was about depression and self-harm; her second, Shimmer Shatter, detailed her social anxiety. Now comes a show that digs deeper still, beneath the mental health challenges Sofie Hagen has faced and down to the emotional abuse she feels she endured in childhood, at the hands of her “narcissistic, psychopathic step-grandfather”, Ib. As with its predecessors, Dead Baby Frog feels as much like a therapy session as a standup set.

The road that runs from trauma to comedy has been well travelled in recent years – and with considerable success. Bubblewrap won Hagen the Edinburgh fringe’s best newcomer award in 2015. The following year, the festival’s top comedy prize went to Richard Gadd’s show about his experience of sexual assault. This year, Hannah Gadsby won it with Nanette, a fierce reaction against homophobia and gender violence. In comedy, the brutalised are kicking back to a chorus of critical acclaim – and the murmur of: “But is it comedy?”

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