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Absurdist comedians Tim and Eric: ‘Our show is a trainwreck of a live experience’

September 8, 2017TheGuardian

The comedy duo recently celebrated the ten-year anniversary of their cult show and talk about finding the funny in the mundane and how they met

For almost two decades now, comedy duo Tim (Heidecker) and Eric (Wareheim) have honed their absurdist and often gross sketch comedy. After a summer of touring and the recent 10th anniversary special of The Awesome Show, they’ve become the kings of out-there alternative comedy, by way of mock infomercials, situational humor, and the occasional song-and-dance routine. The second season of Bedtime Stories, their mock-horror after-hours series on Adult Swim, returns this month to magnify the humdrum tropes of suburban American life, cementing the duo as two of comedy’s most amusing satirists.

A piano store is so grim. How many pianos do you sell everyday? Who comes in to buy a piano?

Absurdist comedians Tim and Eric: ‘Our show is a trainwreck of a live experience’

September 8, 2017TheGuardian

The comedy duo recently celebrated the ten-year anniversary of their cult show and talk about finding the funny in the mundane and how they met

For almost two decades now, comedy duo Tim (Heidecker) and Eric (Wareheim) have honed their absurdist and often gross sketch comedy. After a summer of touring and the recent 10th anniversary special of The Awesome Show, they’ve become the kings of out-there alternative comedy, by way of mock infomercials, situational humor, and the occasional song-and-dance routine. The second season of Bedtime Stories, their mock-horror after-hours series on Adult Swim, returns this month to magnify the humdrum tropes of suburban American life, cementing the duo as two of comedy’s most amusing satirists.

A piano store is so grim. How many pianos do you sell everyday? Who comes in to buy a piano?

Cariad Lloyd: ‘The funniest heckle I’ve had came from Nancy Dell’Olio’

September 8, 2017TheGuardian

The actor, podcaster and improv star on the things that make her laugh the most

Broad City. It was the first time I saw female characters allowed to be just funny: not having to facilitate plot, ask key questions, be a love interest; just be funny. One is an idiot, the other is more of an idiot, that’s it.

Shelley Berman obituary

September 5, 2017TheGuardian

Actor and comedian who first became known for his ‘sitdown’ routines with an imaginary telephone

In the 1950s and 60s, Shelley Berman, who has died aged 92, was the US’s favourite “sitdown” comedian – he would sit on a stool, pick up an imaginary phone in front of him and, in a scratchy voice, start talking. His gripes were aimed partly at “Ma Bell”, as the big American phone network of the time was colloquially known, but also at any other aspect of life that happened to annoy or perplex him. The humour travelled, and when Berman appeared on British television screens – as he often did – his sophisticated approach to everyday problems drew appreciative responses.

During one performance, he was interrupted midway through his monologue by a real phone ringing off-set. He later went backstage and ripped the offending phone from the wall. The incident featured in a 1963 documentary, Comedian Backstage, and viewers were appalled. Berman attributed a dip in his popularity to this brief loss of temper (in fact he said it made him a “pariah” in the industry), but nevertheless he enjoyed a long and prolific stage and screen career.

Sara Pascoe: how I overcame my Jane Austen prejudice

September 1, 2017TheGuardian

Austen’s women have the same rights as children; her ‘romantic’ match-making smacks of desperation. So how did the standup see the funny side of Pride and Prejudice for her new stage adaptation?

“Why does no one talk about how funny Jane Austen is?” I ask my friend Katie. We’d done English literature for three years at Sussex University – how was I only discovering these perceptive comedies a decade later?

“It’s all anyone ever says!” Katie is annoyed with me. “I tried to tell you how great she was but you insisted you’d never read any 19th-century novels.” She’s right. I got through my entire degree avoiding anything from the 19th century. I didn’t care if the steam train ended up in the workhouse, or the bonnet ran out of gruel. Regency literature was too coal-y for me, too long-winded and describey. I preferred modern books where you had to read other books explaining what the first book meant to know what happened.

How could there be any romance, any love, when females were wedding-night virgins, dependants with little respect?

Alex Horne: ‘You’ve Been Framed is the funniest TV show I’ve ever seen’

September 1, 2017TheGuardian

The comedian and Taskmaster creator on the things that make him laugh the most, from Tim Key to The Blues BrothersEvery time I see Tommy Tiernan talking about sex or nothing or God I howl with laughter, and I rarely howl with anything. Continue reading…

Lydia Towsey: how I discovered the Venus in me

August 30, 2017TheGuardian

From Botticelli to glossy magazines, women have been idealised and misrepresented for centuries. Performance poet Lydia Towsey reveals how her own near-fatal eating disorder set her on a path to explore new ways of looking at female bodies

Botticelli’s painting of the Birth of Venus was the first female nude painted and exhibited life size, and in many ways the medieval blueprint for every covergirl to come. It was about the birth of beauty, sexuality and glamour. But what would happen if, instead of washing up on an ancient Cypriot beach on her magnificent scallop shell, the Roman goddess were to arrive naked and vulnerable on a UK beach in the 21st century? This question is the starting point for my show, The Venus Papers.

It’s about lots of things – a theatrical performance combining poetry, humour, art, movement and music, in which I introduce Venus to my world. She encounters customs officers, tabloid newspapers, the male gaze, bars, Primark, life modelling, the perils of breastfeeding in public and something I’ve previously struggled to talk about in my work – the eating disorder I had for approximately seven years.

Edinburgh festival 2017: the best standup shows going on tour

August 28, 2017TheGuardian

Now the fringe is over, comics from Desiree Burch to John Bishop are hitting the road with jokes about fertility anxiety, political correctness and life as a ‘virgin dominatrix’

Maybe you’re frustrated – or delighted – that the Edinburgh festival is over and you didn’t see a thing. Either way, fringe comedy can’t be so easily avoided. Not so long ago, only a handful of festival acts went on to tour or perform substantial runs elsewhere. Now, several dozen take to the touring circuit, and many more tip up at London’s Soho theatre – a perpetual Edinburgh fringe-on-Thames.

In the former category, John Bishop was one among several high-end standups (Jason Manford, Tim Key and Mark Watson also among them) using Edinburgh to road-test material in advance of a future life elsewhere. Some complain that these works-in-progress divert custom from emerging acts who work year-round to prep their Edinburgh shows. Others would rather have under-rehearsed big hitters than no big hitters at all. Bishop brings a notebook on stage and tells us he’ll be ticking and crossing off the try-out jokes that do and don’t work. But that’s just patter: his set doesn’t feel raw, the gags go unticked and uncrossed.

Edinburgh’s double comedy winners mix humour with darker takes on life

August 26, 2017TheGuardian

Shows about relationship breakdown and homophobia pick up a prize – or two – for John Robins and Hannah Gadsby

The longest ever shortlist. The first ever joint winners. And clearly, the most indecisive judging panel ever.

It was indeed, as the publicity would have it, an “unprecedented” year for the Edinburgh comedy awards. But, if there’s a worry that the currency of these awards is being devalued, there can be no real complaints about this year’s champs: probably the two most audacious stand-up shows on the fringe, and certainly among the funniest.