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Rob Brydon: I Am Standing Up review – comic’s comeback is edgier than it seems

March 13, 2017TheGuardian

De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea
Picking on the audience is engaging more than cruel as Brydon riffs and ad-libs with seasoned charm in his new tour

Lined with retirement bungalows and holiday flats, the Sussex seaside resort of Bexhill is a place where people generally go to wind down. But Rob Brydon – visiting the long, low, white De La Warr Pavilion last Friday night – was expanding an already busy professional portfolio that includes several TV panel shows and the comedy-travelogue The Trip, cruise commercials and West End theatre roles.

His first standup tour since an acclaimed stint in 2009-10 calls, as well as Bexhill, at other locations associated with those in the last phase of life, including Bournemouth and Cheltenham. Brydon is fully alive to the possibilities there for near-death jokes.

Emma Sidi: ‘Burning Love is the funniest TV show I’ve ever seen’

March 10, 2017TheGuardian

The character comic and star of BBC3’s Pls Like on what makes her laugh the most

Tony Law is probably the one who makes me laugh the most without knowing quite how I got there, which is a big part of what standup is about for me.

From Bob Newhart to Chris Rock: 10 standup comedy milestones

March 7, 2017TheGuardian

As Netflix invest in Amy Schumer, Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld, what have been the most important comedy specials on stage?

2017 is set to be a big year in standup specials for Netflix – Amy Schumer’s The Leather Special arrives on Tuesday, Dave Chappelle’s new hour will premiere on 21 March, and future specials have been announced from Louis CK, Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock. Only a few years ago, it would have seemed crazy that arguably the five biggest standups on the planet would all release specials on the same streaming platform. But the standup special itself has a long history, evolving with technology and norms in remarkable ways. Here’s a look back at 10 milestone standup specials that brought the form to where it is today.

Andrew Hunter Murray review – a fun-filled, pub quiz comedy

March 6, 2017TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
The Austentatious comedian divides the audience into competing teams in this frivolous, sometimes surreal and very likable show

The improv group Austentatious has become quite the production line of talent, with Cariad Lloyd, Joseph Morpurgo and Rachel Parris all spinning off into eminent solo careers. Now here’s Andrew Hunter Murray, debuting with a set structured around a pub quiz. The host is nerdy Tony Rebozo, a lifelong quiz fanatic, perky on the surface and desperate behind the eyes. The audience is divided into teams (the local book group; an estate agents; a samba class, etc), representatives of which Hunter Murray plays in broad sketches that punctuate each round.

It’s character comedy, in which characterisation plays a minor role. Hunter Murray seldom pretends to be anyone other than himself, whether in the wafer-thin, transparently ridiculous guise of a harassed property manager with a bee infestation, or a snake-hipped Brazilian whose dance instruction draws on amusingly convoluted similes. Most of the roles, such as the reading-group martinet smoking out book dodgers, involve playful audience involvement, but we feel safe and happy in Hunter Murray’s hands. He’s like a gentler Adam Riches, generating much silliness and only a little nervous laughter.

Russell Kane: ‘The funniest heckle I’ve ever had? Nick Grimshaw!’

March 3, 2017TheGuardian

The flamboyant standup on the things that make him laugh the most, from cult books and Tim Vine to reindeer’s blood pancakes

“Fuck off Nick Grimshaw”. Wherever I go, people angrily insist that I am he. The more I protest, the more certain they are. It was funny. At first.

Hate Thy Neighbor’s Jamali Maddix: a crude, cartoonish, straight-up standup

March 2, 2017TheGuardian

The comic who presented a TV series on the rise of the far right is back with a show that combines goofballery with cultural commentary

Did you see Hate Thy Neighbor on Viceland TV? A sizeable chunk of the audience at Jamali Maddix’s Soho theatre gig did. His documentary series about the rise of the far right seems to have catapulted the east Londoner to the frontline of young comics, and raised expectations, perhaps, that he’ll be a social commentator as well as a teller of jokes.

I saw Maddix’s maiden Edinburgh fringe show last August. He was promising and charismatic, but a bit raw, and some of his crowd interactions felt slightly misjudged. For his week-long Soho theatre run, however, he is on better form. He wasn’t polished then and he’s not polished now; that’s not his style. There’s a scruffy, shooting-the-breeze vibe, he often gets tongue-tied – and his appeal boils down as much to funny manner as to the acuity of any specific thing he’s saying. You get a lot for free when you look as distinctive as Maddix (bottle-bottom glasses, bushy beard, beanie hat and tattoos), speak like a cartoon (dismay and declamation forever propelling him to the top of his register) and gesticulate like a rapper.

Seann Walsh review – enjoyable riffs on crumbs and courgetti

February 26, 2017TheGuardian

Theatre Royal, Brighton
Walsh wears his comic curmudgeonliness well as he rebels against sober maturity, clean eating, Tinder, vapes and smartphones

Professional curmudgeon is a familiar standup persona, and Seann Walsh wears it well – which is handy, given that he’s casting around for a new role. In his early shows – The Lie-In King was Edinburgh comedy award-nominated – Walsh played the roistering lager lout. Aged 31, and reluctantly grown-up (“I can now see crumbs!”), that’s hard to sustain. Instead, in One for the Road, he plays the appalled refugee from youth into maturity, aghast at the ways the sober British adult is nowadays expected to spend his time.

Seann Walsh: ‘I wrote a line for The Thick Of It – it’s probably my proudest moment’

February 24, 2017TheGuardian

The fun-loving standup and panel show regular on the things that make him laugh the most, from Partridge to sausage

The Thick Of It. “Wake up and smell the cock,” is one of the best lines ever written; they managed to make the sound of the letter “K” a left turn punchline. That blew my mind. I inadvertently wrote a line for it once. Will Smith is asked: “What do you ask for at the hairdressers, Disney Prince?” I had told Will he had Disney Prince hair at Banana Cabaret. He kindly credited me on Twitter. That’s probably what I’m most proud of in my career.

Ricky Gervais review – ruthless, self-revealing show is his best yet

February 24, 2017TheGuardian

Colston Hall, Bristol
Gervais’s new set, Humanity, is pumped with scorn and provocation but the inclusion of more personal material gives a rare glimpse of a gentler man

In his new standup show, Humanity, his first for seven years, Ricky Gervais tells a childhood story about his Uncle Reginald, a bald man whose preposterous wig ignited a conspiracy of silence in the family. Can we blame – or thank – Reg for the entertainer his nephew became? For tonight’s show, and Gervais’s whole comic career, is one big delinquent reaction against just such taboos, a gleeful rending of drawn veils, to hell with feelings hurt in the process. Those sensitive to transgender issues, say (or jokes involving rape or cot death), should take a deep breath before booking for Humanity. And yet, it’s Gervais’s best and most considered standup show so far.

It’s also, not coincidentally, his most personal. Alongside the Uncle Reg material, there are stories about his prankster brother Bob, their mother’s funeral, and life growing up on a Reading council estate. This is a self-revealing side to Gervais we’ve seldom seen, offsetting the wilful provocation with something gentler, less attention-seeking.

Alfie Brown review – subversive standup rages about the pieties of our age

February 23, 2017TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
Like a British Doug Stanhope, the provocative comic oozes scorn, cynicism and sardonic spleen

There’s a gap in the market for a British Doug Stanhope, although Alfie Brown, who is best positioned to fill it, would reject the terms of that proposition. His whole career, and much of this show, oozes scorn for capitalism and commodified culture. On stage, that parlays into sardonicism, spleen and self-laceration: Brown doesn’t make himself easy to love. But even if you frequently disagree with this hectoring takedown of the pieties of our age, you’ll never be bored.

Provocation is the keynote: Brown has an armful of subversive arguments, some of which surely aim more to ruffle than persuade. We’re all a bit racist: Brown’s analysis of our wariness of passengers who “look like terrorists” on planes. Men are victims of gender inequality: he rages with envy at the intensity of the female orgasm.

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