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Scream with laughter: can comedy ever be scary?

September 25, 2017TheGuardian

Standup Nick Coyle’s new show Queen of Wolves takes a Victorian governess on a terrifying journey – and proves how humour and horror work in similar ways

The buzz around Australian standup Nick Coyle’s latest offering Queen of Wolves suggested a show that not only tickles the funny bone but chills the marrow. It finds Coyle cross-dressing as Victorian governess Frances Glass. Prim, poor and desperate, she arrives at Blackbell House – out on the windy moors – only to find that her intended infant charges have died in mysterious circumstances. What follows is the story of Frances’s bid to stay alone in the haunted house for six weeks, preparing it for sale.

Simon Amstell review – perky, pained, anxious, ironic, wise – and funny

September 24, 2017TheGuardian

Leicester Square theatre, London
From his long process, after coming out, of self-acceptance to his newfound romantic happiness, this is classic, neurotic, angst-ridden Amstell

If there were any doubts that romantic bliss might have dulled Simon Amstell’s neurotic edge, they’re allayed in the opening seconds of the first night of his new tour. He may be six years into a relationship, have just published his first book and made a splash with the recent TV mockumentary Carnage. But he still can’t help telling us – it’s the first thing he says – how undermined he feels by a single empty seat on the front row. Plus ca change, plus c’est le meme angst-ridden Amstell, laying bare his overthought emotional life in the name of our entertainment.

The new show is called What Is This?, with emphasis firmly on the middle word. The “this” is life, that mysterious thing Amstell can’t bring himself to just get on with like everyone else. After all: why? OK, so he’s not as riddled with self-loathing as he once was. Back then, he could barely get out of bed; now, “I get out of bed, but I don’t know why I’ve done it.” Existential angst, or wealthy man’s privilege? A bit of both. Amstell doesn’t remotely apologise for being famous – one droll gag finds him repaying his mum for the use of her womb by introducing her to Derren Brown. But it’s clear celebrity is just one more circle of alienation for a man whose every social interaction feels like an out-of-body experience.

Mae Martin: ‘Waiting for Guffman is the funniest film I’ve ever seen’

September 22, 2017TheGuardian

The Canadian standup and actor on the things that make her laugh the most, from suede waistcoats to PG Wodehouse

This is so hard. I feel sick. OK, I’m going to say Tom Allen taking out a drunk heckler at the Soho theatre was probably one of my favourite live comedy experiences. Tom calmly destroyed this horrible cretin, while keeping us all on his side and even charming the heckler. He’s one of my favourite people to watch on stage.

Mae Martin: ‘Waiting for Guffman is the funniest film I’ve ever seen’

September 22, 2017TheGuardian

The Canadian standup and actor on the things that make her laugh the most, from suede waistcoats to PG Wodehouse

This is so hard. I feel sick. OK, I’m going to say Tom Allen taking out a drunk heckler at the Soho theatre was probably one of my favourite live comedy experiences. Tom calmly destroyed this horrible cretin, while keeping us all on his side and even charming the heckler. He’s one of my favourite people to watch on stage.

Katy Brand review – standup goes on an interstellar adventure

September 21, 2017TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
I Could Have Been an Astronaut is an amusing ramble through Brand’s childhood obsessions, fate and the factors that make us who we are

Some comics have extraordinary stories to tell about their lives. Katy Brand is among them – but perhaps she used hers up on last year’s offering, I Was a Teenage Christian. So she has to work a bit harder at this second show of her reborn career, as an ex-sketch and character actor turned autobiographical storyteller. I Could’ve Been an Astronaut asks why our lives turn out as they do. Was Brand bound to become an entertainer? Or – had her childhood interest in astronomy been encouraged – could she have worked in astrophysics instead?

John Kearns: a supreme standup hidden behind bad teeth and a tonsure

September 20, 2017TheGuardian

The wig-wearing comic’s new show about humdrum heroism is his best yet. But as his act strives for knockout poignancy, does the goofy get-up help or hinder?

When John Kearns corpses, is he coming out of character? It happens on a few occasions during his current Soho theatre gig, and – even though I know the official line on Kearns’ act, which is “it’s not a character: it’s me” – these moments feel like a glimpse behind the curtain. For the uninitiated, Kearns is a double Edinburgh comedy award winner, the only act ever to win best newcomer and best show. He performs in party-shop false teeth and a tonsure wig and is frequently compared to Tony Hancock because his shtick is suburban loserdom and plangent existentialism, the minutiae of a humdrum life mined for flights of poetry and meek heroism.

The fing about Micky Flanagan: irresistible rise of a minted everyman

September 18, 2017TheGuardian

The UK’s most popular comic is taking his cockney shtick on tour but he’s more than a cheeky caricature – his democratic brand of humour is smart and generous

I’m not sure whether to review Micky Flanagan’s comedy or weigh it. The biggest-selling comedian of 2016 is doing 12 nights at the O2 Arena. He is the country’s most popular comic and, by some measures, its most popular entertainer full stop. At one point in tonight’s show, random cheering breaks out at the back of the O2 auditorium and Flanagan jokes that Michael McIntyre or Peter Kay must have set up a rival gig in the crowd. When you can joke, from a position of strength, that the best-loved comedians of this millennium are busking to pockets of your audience – well, you’re a long way from Billingsgate fish market, where the young Micky once plied the family trade.

Class identity, of course, is part of Flanagan’s gargantuan draw. Not because he’s an uncomplicatedly old-school, working-class comic, which isn’t – or hasn’t always been – the case. As his earlier shows documented, Flanagan is something of a class chameleon, an ex-window cleaner turned university graduate, an Eastender now resident in East Dulwich, as apt to be found dissecting his new-found middle class habits as peddling the traditional values with which he grew up.

When comedy’s big hitters take a short cut to the punchline

September 17, 2017TheGuardian

The stars of the Greenwich comedy festival had to concertina their standup routines. But can the likes of Dylan Moran and Bridget Christie ruminate and rage against the clock?

What is the basic unit of comedy performance? As comedy festivals spring up nationwide, as the Edinburgh fringe expands annually and spawns ever more touring comics, the hour-long solo show has started to feel like the art form’s default setting. But it isn’t. As any casual comedy watcher – the occasional visitor to their local club; the magpie Live at the Apollo viewer – will tell you, standup is usually served in 20-minute chunks. The Greenwich comedy festival, now eight years old, celebrates this species of comedy. Over five days, in the grounds of the National Maritime Museum, the country’s higher-end acts (Dara Ó Briain, Alan Davies, Adam Hills) rub shoulders in a tent.

Much is made in comedy of the progression from club set to full show. Some acts take years honing the skills, or plucking up the courage, to make the leap. But what of the leap in the other direction? On Saturday in Greenwich, I watched three acts who I usually see in long-form mode. Of course, you’d expect comics such as Bridget Christie and Dylan Moran to be excellent whatever the time slot. But what sacrifices do they make when they don’t have time to develop an argument? What routes do they take to a faster, flightier kind of laugh?

Deborah Frances-White: ‘Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a genius’

September 15, 2017TheGuardian

The Guilty Feminist podcast host on the things that make her laugh the most, from Tim Minchin to Better Off Dead

A tie between two Australians: Tim Minchin’s Ready for This? and Hannah Gadsby’s coming-out story, which I saw in Edinburgh years ago. She’s a big deal now but back then there were only seven people in the audience. I roared alone in the dark and introduced myself at the end, explaining to her that we were friends now.

Angels and demons: the unmissable theatre, comedy and dance of autumn 2017

September 12, 2017TheGuardian

Hamilton hits London, Bryan Cranston’s news anchor goes berserk, Wayne McGregor turns his DNA into dance, Mae Martin revisits her teen addictions and Toyah Willcox is a time-travelling queen

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