Comedian who has not toured for eight years says he deeply regrets decision to cancel more than 100 shows next yearPeter Kay has cancelled his tour of Britain and Ireland, which would have seen him perform more than 100 gigs, citing family circumstance…
Continue ReadingNew Diorama, London
A reunited brother and sister try to repair their relationship at Christmas time in this amiable show with songs
Christmas is a time to be with family. But what if your family is fractured? That’s the question at the heart of this amiable show, written by and starring Jonny Donahoe, with songs from his duo Jonny & the Baptists. The tunes include that festive classic Don’t Be a Prick at Christmas.
Donahoe and comedian Rachel Parris play siblings, Jonny and Rachel, who were raised in a car by their socialist Jewish agnostic father, a man who lived by different rules. Christmas was spent in other people’s homes, often uninvited. There was the year they sat outside the house of their mother, eating corned beef sandwiches, watching her celebrate with her new family through the window. And there was the year they turned up unannounced on the doorstep of some Norwegians briefly met at an airport.
Related: Comedians on how to banish festive fear and have a better Christmas
Continue ReadingMixing circus skills with finely honed comedy and bum jokes, these juggling, beatboxing man-toddlers are joyous – and more than a little menacing
My three-year-old son, Gregor, thinks farting is the funniest thing. He let one go while sat on my lap on the bus en route to the Ongals’ show and dissolved into giggles. My daughter, aged seven, is considerably more mature: she likes bums. When we arrived at Soho theatre, the first thing she noticed was the poster for Wild Bore, the performance art/theatre show deconstructing the art of criticism. Its poster features three naked female backsides, and Cora was transfixed by it. Why?, she wanted to know. How!? So I felt pretty pleased as we entered the auditorium for Babbling Comedy, a slapstick comedy from South Korea reportedly heavy on the farting and backsides gags. A surefire success, right?
Well, yes – and, I am happy to report, not primarily for bum-related reasons. OK, so on reviewing the show afterwards, both kids decided their favourite moment was when the pink big baby shoved a bicycle pump up the yellow big baby’s bottom and inflated the balloon sticking out of his mouth. But toilet humour is only a small component of what makes Babbling Comedy an endearing family show. It’s a circus-meets-slapstick hour, performed by grown men in candy-coloured romper-suits, non-verbal if you discount their frenetic gurgling and babbling. (“Ongali” is Korean for “goo goo gah gah”, apparently.) If you don’t like juggling, hold out for the beatboxing. There’s something here for everyone.
Continue ReadingBattersea Arts Centre, London
The winningly weird comic tasks his audience with solving an animal massacre mystery in an evening that spins a good story from endless fun nonsense
There’s been an incident at Beakington Town Hall, and the mayor is fuming. We councillors – given name badges at the door by Adam Riches’ eager apparatchik – assemble to get to the bottom of the debacle. And until the culprit has been smoked out, no one is leaving. That’s the setup for this pre-Christmas confection from audience participation monster Riches, the latest bespoke festive comedy show at BAC after those by Sara Pascoe, John Kearns and Daniel Kitson in years gone by. But although Riches’ knockabout whodunnit is seasonal only in the sense that it is jolly, The Beakington Town Hall Meetings is about as jolly as it gets.
It’s ramshackle, ends anti-climactically and the premise is as thin as the foil atop Riches’ beloved bottles of Yakult. But it is buoyed along by our host’s force of personality, the communal good cheer he deftly stokes – and several instances of winning oddity. These include two audience stooges being eyeballed by a live tortoise, the sole survivor of a tombola massacre that has threatened to ruin Christmas in Beakington, “a town so backwards it could almost be twinned with itself”.
Riches has audience members – sorry, suspects – get busy with watermelon, party poppers and mistletoe
Continue Reading’Tis the season to compile lists of your favourite productions of the year – let us know which ones left you spellbound
As December disappears and the new year beckons, we’re remembering the theatre, comedy and dance shows that stood out in 2017 – and we’d love to hear your favourites. Please fill out the form below before Thursday 14 December, writing up to 250 words about the one show you found unforgettable. We’ll publish a selection of your favourites on the site before Christmas.
Continue ReadingFrom faking illness to binning Brexit chat, standups including Rachel Parris, Milton Jones and Phil Wang share advice on taking the hassle out of the holidays
Rachel Parris: Wear something hilarious at all times. A novelty jumper or naughty apron will give everyone something to talk about that isn’t Brexit.
Tom Allen: It’s the season of goodwill, so let people know how they can improve themselves. Maybe they’ve gone for quantity over quality with the mini quiches, or maybe they’re simply dreadful people. Imagine how pleased they’ll be to have you help them.
Santa didn’t become Santa by playing fair
Continue ReadingBridget Christie promises a night of hope and despair, Daniel Kitson serves up a heartwarmer and Lucy McCormick delivers a trash take on the New Testament. Here are the funniest festive gigs
Her last show, Because You Demanded It, was one of the comedy events of 2016: a hastily assembled, laceratingly funny cri de coeur about the state of Britain post-referendum. Now comes the followup, What Now? – billed as “a night of hope and despair” – trialling across London throughout the festive season.
•In rep until 16 December, at Battersea Arts Centre, Museum of Comedy and the Bill Murray, London.
Comedy Box, Bristol
After spending a year in rehab, Cho returns to the mic and tackles Weinstein and Trump, leaving prudery and inhibition in her wake
Since her last UK visit, Korean-American comic Margaret Cho has spent over a year in rehab, after friends intervened to rescue her from drugs and suicidal impulses. She had to apologise for a New Jersey gig last year that ended in a “bizarre onstage meltdown”, and a slanging match between Cho and her audience. One punter protested that her rape jokes were inappropriate for Easter weekend, to which pious heckle – 18 months later and a continent away – she tonight delivers an outrageously transgressive response.
So yes, the 48-year-old is now clean, sober and back behind the microphone, and her style and onstage manner are less attention-seeking than in the past. But there’s nothing rehabilitated about the content of Fresh Off the Bloat, which is as filthy and full-frontal as we’ve come to expect of Cho. The material ranges across sex, sexual abuse and scatology, and is dispatched with sometimes beautiful economy.
Related: Don’t go there? Standups on Weinstein, taboos – and the gags they regret
Related: Margaret Cho: ‘I love Pauline and her pens from The League of Gentlemen’
Continue ReadingThe American standup and actor on the things that make her laugh the most, from Paul Foot to her mother
It was Paul Foot’s private show for specially selected audience members at a small pub in London. The show began with Paul seating the audience, then making jokes about each of them. It was incredible.
Continue ReadingIzzard was inspired by his incontinence knickers routine. Iannucci had to listen to his albums in secret. Al Murray was in awe of his rampant charisma. And he made Susan Calman hurt with laughter. Top comedians salute the Big Yin Continue reading…
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