Elf Lyons: Raven review – fierce and funny fright-night

Soho theatre, LondonLyons raises her personal demons so she can publicly refuse to play by their rules in this complex comedy-horror crossoverThe eye-popping final sequence of Elf Lyons’s Raven unfolds to Rage Against the Machine’s cacophonous Killing …

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Rich Hall: ‘America is on the edge of the apocalypse – Britain is a shuffling of weird ghoulish political figures’

The standup and author on American-British rants, why Saturday Night Live wouldn’t work in the UK and the joy of offending Winnebago ownersYour current show is called Shot from Cannons. What is it about?The first half is grampa throwing slippers at the…

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The Tories are trashing more than just the nation | Stewart Lee

Keeping my act topical, given our chaotic government, is getting beyond a jokeI opened my new standup show, Basic Lee, 14 days after Liz Truss took office. Do you remember her? The cheese one? I joked to the Guardian-reading tofu-eating wokerati in att…

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Maybe a Ghost Story review – Daniel Kitson scares up a sparkling Halloween yarn

Shakespeare’s Globe, LondonThe comedian is as spontaneous as ever in this unadorned show featuring a one-ghost campaign to rewild the sanitised customs of All Hallows Eve‘Just a very long-winded way of shouting boo.” So says the hero of Daniel Kitson’s…

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Maybe a Ghost Story review – Daniel Kitson scares up a sparkling Halloween yarn

Shakespeare’s Globe, LondonThe comedian is as spontaneous as ever in this unadorned show featuring a one-ghost campaign to rewild the sanitised customs of All Hallows Eve‘Just a very long-winded way of shouting boo.” So says the hero of Daniel Kitson’s…

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‘My parents wanted to give me horse hormones’ – Sam Campbell, comedy’s new champion

He breezed into the Edinburgh fringe late with just half a show – and won the ‘Oscar of comedy’. In his first ever face-to-face interview, the eccentric Aussie standup reveals what’s next (‘Something’)Here’s how the Edinburgh fringe usually figures in …

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Suzi Ruffell review – self-mocking snapshot of hapless parenthood and cats’ behinds

Farnham Maltings, Surrey The Portsmouth native is good company, cheerfully goofing around for our entertainment, but the set feels one draft short of its full potentialNew baby. Spiking anxiety. The state of the world. You can see how the component par…

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Joe Rogan review – ‘dumb guy’ comedy grounded in an alpha male world

O2 Arena, London The controversial US podcaster finds fertile material challenging society’s sensitivities – yet while his standup takes pains to short-circuit offence, fear of emasculation underpins too many of the gags“Talking shit used to be fun,” c…

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Brown Girls Do It Too: Mama Told Me Not to Come review – candid carnal chatter

Soho theatre, LondonRubina Pabani and Poppy Jay hop between banter, song and comedy skits in a show with a solid emotional and political coreYou get a particular type of laughter, undergirded by gasps of joy and recognition, when a crowd hears its own …

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Dave Woodhead: the 10 funniest things I have ever seen (on the internet)

You can use the internet to buy uranium on the dark web or laugh at this list, which includes Aunty Donna, a bad Drake cake and a sketch so funny that Dave thought he might dieGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailThe internet can be used for many…

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