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Opera isn’t elitest. If I can learn to love it so can anybody | Chris Addison

March 21, 2018TheGuardian

Only a handful of people can sing in this visceral, thrilling way – but the feelings they evoke are universal

The best thing I’ve ever seen, in all my long and misspent years hanging around comedy gigs, wasn’t standup. It was opera. Back in the late 90s, I was standing at the bar in one of the spit-and-stale-beer clubs where I cut my teeth, watching the MC corral the usual drunken Friday-night punters. He lighted on a woman in her early 20s at a table down the front and asked “What do you do?” “I’m an opera student,” she replied to general raucous disbelief. “Oh, yeah?” twinkled the compere, smelling pretentious blood (and what MC wouldn’t? An opera singer and a student – that, friends, is a double whammy), “Give us a song, then.” So she did. The gleeful muttering and ironic applause stuttered out when she stood and sang : Puccini’s O mio babbino caro, which, like pretty much everyone else there, I knew at that point only either as the tune from A Room With a View or an ad we couldn’t quite place.

It was incredible: the clarity of her voice, the pureness, the emotion. Such an odd and striking thing to hear in a room where most of the time what comes from the mouths of the performers is soaked in self-conscious irony. And what a reaction! I’ve never seen a four-pints-down crowd focus like that; there was a stillness to the place – a wonder, really – as she sang. And when she finished, they went crazy. Standing screaming crazy. X Factor final audience the-guy-whose-gran-died-just-won crazy.

You’re listening to the most basic human tool of communication – the voice – used in an almost impossibly superhuman way

Tickling sticks laid in tribute at Ken Dodd’s Liverpool home

March 12, 2018TheGuardian

Fans remember comedy legend who ‘broke the mould’ at house where he was born and died

A pile of flowers and feather dusters – or “tickling sticks” – has begun to grow outside the 18th-century house in Knotty Ash, Liverpool, where the comedian Ken Dodd was born and died.

Allan Grice, a 71-year-old former senior fire officer, made the three-hour journey from Wakefield in West Yorkshire to Dodd’s home to hand-deliver a card of condolence, after hearing of the comedian’s death on the radio early on Monday.

Tickling sticks laid in tribute at Ken Dodd’s Liverpool home

March 12, 2018TheGuardian

Fans remember comedy legend who ‘broke the mould’ at house where he was born and died

A pile of flowers and feather dusters – or “tickling sticks” – has begun to grow outside the 18th-century house in Knotty Ash, Liverpool, where the comedian Ken Dodd was born and died.

Allan Grice, a 71-year-old former senior fire officer, made the three-hour journey from Wakefield in West Yorkshire to Dodd’s home to hand-deliver a card of condolence, after hearing of the comedian’s death on the radio early on Monday.

Sir Ken Dodd obituary

March 12, 2018TheGuardian

Comedian with an endless desire to make people laugh known for his tickling sticks, Diddymen and marathon stage performances

The last great “front-cloth” comic of our times, and the last standing true vaudevillian, Ken Dodd, who has died aged 90, was even more than that – a force of nature, a whirlwind, an ambulant torrent of surreal invention, physical and verbal, whose Liverpudlian cheek masked the melancholy of an authentic clown. “This isn’t television, missus,” he’d say to the front stalls, “you can’t turn me off.” And then he would embark on an odyssey of gag-spinning that, over five hours, would beat an audience into submission, often literally, banging a huge drum and declaring that if we did not like the jokes he would follow us home and shout them through the letter-box.

He entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1974 with a marathon mirth-quake at the Royal Court Liverpool lasting three hours, 30 minutes and six seconds. But his solo shows, in which he would perform three 90-minute-plus sets between magic acts, or a female trumpeter (the formidable Joan Hinde), or a pianist playing country music (his partner Anne Jones), frequently lasted much longer. One good thing, he would say, was that you always went home in the daylight. “And the sooner you laugh at the jokes,” he would say, “the sooner you can go home,” as if we were in school. He admitted that his was an educational show – when you did get home you would think: “That taught me a lesson!”

Five times comedy legend Ken Dodd made us laugh – video

March 12, 2018TheGuardian

The entertainer Sir Ken Dodd has died at the age of 90, just two days after marrying his long-term partner, Anne Jones. Dodd died on Sunday in the house in which he was born, in the Liverpool suburb of Knotty Ash. His publicist, Robert Holmes…

Sir Ken Dodd, legend of comedy, dies aged 90

March 12, 2018TheGuardian

Stars pay tribute to Liverpudlian comic described as ‘one of the last music hall greats’

Tributes have been paid to the entertainer Sir Ken Dodd, who has died at the age of 90 just two days after marrying his long-term partner.

Dodd died on Sunday in the house in which he was born in the Liverpool suburb of Knotty Ash, his publicist said. His wife, Anne Jones, was at his bedside.

What a wonderful day for sticking a cucumber through your neighbour’s letter box and shouting ‘the aliens have landed!’ Tatty bye Doddy. And thanks . #doddy

Comedy flowed through him like water. RIP Sir Ken Dodd. pic.twitter.com/v0FjVJVe1n

Comedians say case of sued performer is threat to the art

February 23, 2018TheGuardian

Standups say outcome of Louise Reay case could stop people talking about personal lives

Leading comedians, including David Baddiel, have said the Louise Reay case, in which she is being sued by her estranged husband for allegedly defaming him on stage, should not restrict standups from using personal material.

In what has been described as a test case, Reay, whose real surname is Beamont, is being sued for references to her marriage in her show, Hard Mode, at the Edinburgh Fringe and in London last year.

1 WK TODAY! We’re so excited to see these amazing comedians in action on 1 March @UnionChapelUK for You (Still) Can’t Say That! The Big PEN Comedy Gig. Grab yourself a ticket quick-sharp – Book Now: https://t.co/QOtOZuhhpO #comedygig #freespeech #comedy #londoncomedy pic.twitter.com/adSgFW9Hzi

I sympathise with Louise Beaumont: we comedians are truth-seekers | Arnab Chanda

February 22, 2018TheGuardian

Looking for the laughs in painful personal stories makes for interesting subject matter, but emotionally it’s a high-risk path

I don’t really feel comfortable speaking about Louise Beamont’s case, in which Thomas Reay, her estranged husband, is suing her on the grounds that she defamed him in a standup show. Not only have two people’s lives genuinely been affected, but I haven’t even seen the show and, as it’s an ongoing court case, I can’t comment on it too much anyway (being sued sounds super tiring). Also, I’m just a moron comedy writer who never even studied law (I thought My Cousin Vinny was good though).

I can, maybe, try to answer one question, though: where do you draw the line when it comes to writing good comedy versus exposing someone you know or love?

I sympathise with Louise Beaumont: we comedians are truth-seekers | Arnab Chanda

February 22, 2018TheGuardian

Looking for the laughs in painful personal stories makes for interesting subject matter, but emotionally it’s a high-risk path

I don’t really feel comfortable speaking about Louise Beamont’s case, in which Thomas Reay, her estranged husband, is suing her on the grounds that she defamed him in a standup show. Not only have two people’s lives genuinely been affected, but I haven’t even seen the show and, as it’s an ongoing court case, I can’t comment on it too much anyway (being sued sounds super tiring). Also, I’m just a moron comedy writer who never even studied law (I thought My Cousin Vinny was good though).

I can, maybe, try to answer one question, though: where do you draw the line when it comes to writing good comedy versus exposing someone you know or love?

Standup comedian’s husband sues for defamation over ‘provocative’ show

February 19, 2018TheGuardian

Louise Reay says she faces bankruptcy if she loses case that could boil down to judge’s sense of humour

An award-winning standup comedian is being sued by her estranged husband for allegedly defaming him in her show.

The lawsuit, described by a leading lawyer as a test case, relates to a show by Louise Beamont (stage name Reay). Hard Mode was billed as as a “provocative show [that] explores censorship and surveillance”; though one critic described it as being “at its core … about a very recent and raw heartbreak”.

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