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From Del Boy’s cap to Steve Martin’s arrow – what happened to the comedy trademark?

August 7, 2017TheGuardian

Comedians once embraced a signature quip or look, so why have such tropes fallen out of favour?

Imagine a museum devoted to the iconography of comedy. There would be glass cases containing Del Boy’s flat cap, Father Ted’s dog collar and a perfectly preserved set of fork handles. There’d be an animatronic mannequin of Basil Fawlty, performing his impression of the Führer on a permanent loop. And on the public address system, echoing around the exhibits, a collection of immortal catchphrases: “Suits you, sir … You stupid boy … I don’t BELIEVE it.”

Related: The IT Crowd – box set review

Rose Matafeo: Sassy Best Friend review – fun-filled satire on romcoms

August 6, 2017TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
The comedian keeps things upbeat as she lightly interrogates Hollywood cliche and the role models on offer to young women

Rose Matafeo has watched a lot of romcoms, and decided that she’s classic “sassy best friend” material – hence the title of this new show. But what does that mean, and is it a good thing to be? A year on from the New Zealander’s whirlwind fringe debut with Finally Dead, this latest offering interrogates – with the lightest of touches – the personalities on offer to women, and one way in particular that those personalities can be tampered with.

Joseph Morpurgo: Hammerhead review – uproariously funny Q&A spoof

August 6, 2017TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
Morpurgo’s ludicrous satire on the post-show chat is so full of invention you could watch it twice and not stop laughing

Joseph Morpurgo made a name for himself with a pair of high-concept multimedia comedy shows, the second of which, Soothing Sounds for Baby (2015), is routinely talked about as one of the great Edinburgh comedy award near-misses. He returns with another sui generis offering, Hammerhead, spoofing the conventions of the post-show Q&A. I doubted how well it was doing this over the opening stages, which are big, brash and broad – as is the whole show. But I was won over once I accepted that Hammerhead follows no one’s rules but its own, and began savouring the silliness, structural intricacy and sheer bountiful invention of Morpurgo’s enterprise.

Sara Pascoe: LadsLadsLads review – breakup tales from a woman reborn

August 5, 2017TheGuardian

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
The whipsmart standup overthinks, overshares and delivers a winningly funny show that finds the humour in heartbreak

Call it reinvention, or call it back to basics, but Sara Pascoe’s Edinburgh fringe return – after a couple of years writing and promoting her book Animal – marks a departure from the shows that made her name. Those were anthropology masquerading as comedy, and wore their erudition on their sleeve. This one, entitled LadsLadsLads, is more introspective and treads ground more familiar for standup, as it chronicles Pascoe’s efforts to be happily single after the breakup of a four-year relationship. It’s still whipsmart, though, and winningly funny, as Pascoe overthinks and overshares in the name of our entertainment.

Trans tales and rogue cabarets: Edinburgh festival 2017 – in pictures

August 5, 2017TheGuardian

From Sara Pascoe’s new standup to a strange evening with Martin Creed, via acrobats, Samuel Beckett and a wild girl from Borneo, here are the sights so far

All photographs by Murdo MacLeod

Bigfoot and me: Roddy Bottum on his avant garde monster opera

August 5, 2017TheGuardian

He was one of the first openly gay men in metal. Now, after losing everything in a house fire, Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum is bankrolling an opera featuring crystal-meth arias and interspecies duets

In a top-floor flat overlooking Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, Roddy Bottum is talking me through his fringe show Sasquatch: The Opera. Bottum is the keyboard player in Faith No More, whose twisted take on hard rock propelled them to global success in the 90s, and he’s at the festival with a cast of opera singers and experimenters from New York’s avant garde performance art scene. Though it’s a few days until curtain-up, they want to give me a preview. In true fringe style they perform four scenes right here in the living room, to music played on his laptop.

Did Axl talk to me about being gay? Not so much

Paul Chowdhry: ‘People write this abuse to me, and I’ve just got to take it?’

August 4, 2017August 4, 2017TheGuardian

He’s not a TV favourite, but the actor and comedian has built one of the most diverse audiences of any current standup, partly through the subversive use of social media. Now he’s written his most personal show yet – and is booked to play Wembley

We are surveying, from the terrace, Paul Chowdhry’s garden, which is quite large (for London) and very neat. He has, he confesses, a man who comes to help him keep on top of it. That’s posh, I say. Having considered himself working-class all his life, Chowdhry is now considering whether he’s middle-class. He does have hummus in the kitchen, I point out. “And it’s organic,” he says, deadpan.

You may know Chowdhry from television, but possibly not. He doesn’t have a huge TV profile – he’s never done Mock the Week; he’s only done two editions of Live at the Apollo. Bookers rarely ask him on their panel shows (just one episode of 8 out of 10 Cats). He hosted the final series of Channel 4’s Stand Up for the Week, but his audience – one of the most diverse audiences of any current standup – has been largely built through word of mouth and social media, particularly the videos he makes and posts. He has done two sold-out tours, What’s Happening White People? in 2012, and 2015’s PC’s World, both of which were filmed for DVD. His new tour, which takes in Edinburgh, is about to start and he has had to add dates to cope with the demand. It includes two dates at Wembley Arena.

Ingrid Oliver: ‘I thought I’d cheer myself up by dressing like a Bavarian barmaid’

August 4, 2017TheGuardian

The actor and sketch show comic opens up about the things that make her laugh the most, from The Thick of It to German nipples

I love the Nazi sketch by Mitchell and Webb. Two Nazis worrying about the prevalence of skulls on their uniforms leading to the brilliantly plaintive question: “Hans, are we the baddies?”

Edinburgh festival 2017: 10 shows to see

August 4, 2017TheGuardian

A puppet blockbuster, a Bigfoot opera and a Northern Soul dance marathon all feature in the lineup of the 70th Edinburgh festivalEdinburgh Playhouse Continue reading…

Comic Rose Matafeo: ‘I definitely probably have a moderate amount of talent’

August 3, 2017TheGuardian

Since first picking up the mic at 15, the standup has tap-danced, done Aerosmith karaoke and starred in her own TV show. So why does she want to disappear offstage?

Was there ever a greater discrepancy between talent and confidence? Rose Matafeo, at 25, is an award-winning standup, a TV star in her native New Zealand and made a striking Edinburgh fringe debut last summer. That show wasn’t perfect, but Matafeo’s force of personality – dominant, dorky-excitable – was a sight to behold. Here was a comedian whose power couldn’t be denied. Except by Matafeo herself, it turns out, whose stellar charisma on stage is matched by subterranean self-esteem off it.

This becomes clear over coffee as Matafeo girds herself for a return to Edinburgh with her new show, Sassy Best Friend. When I ask what it is about her comedy that is winning such acclaim, Matafeo squirms with discomfort. “That’s the most uncomfortable position to put someone like me in,” she says. “I’m not going to be forced to answer that.”

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