February 2013
I don't know what it is about stand-up comedy but everyone seems to be at it these days. Maybe it's because nobody has any job security any more. Maybe it's because everyone at heart is a bit of a show-off. Maybe it's because men have been told that if they don't look like George Clooney the best way of getting a woman into bed is by making them laugh.
Comedy on film is clearly all the rage.
It can't be easy being a political comedian in America these days. No sooner do you open your mouth than the critics are measuring you against Bill Hicks. Jamie Kilstein must be getting used to this by now, but it must also get a little wearing.
The Comedy Store's Don Ward (left) might be in his early seventies but he always has another idea up his sleeve. His latest plan is to put the Comedy Store experience onto cinema screens. Starting this Friday (February 22) and then every fortnight, shows shot at The Comedy Store will be screened in cinemas all over the country.
The bobbies on the beat might be getting younger but you can tell that the comedians are getting older by the number doing shows about mid-life crises and their ailing parents. Mark Thomas' Bravo Figaro!, about his opera-loving tyrant of a dad, set the bar high, but coming up fast on the inside rail is Sean Hughes' Life Becomes Noises, about his father's death from cancer.
Sometimes fate steps in to make a story more topical after it has been published. That is the case with this Ardal O'Hanlon review which appeared in the Evening Standard last week. You can read the full original review here.
A version of this review of Sarah Silverman below first appeared in the Evening Standard. You can read the original review here.
Alan Davies returned to stand-up in 2012 after ten years away with a new show, Life Is Pain, in which he tackled issues ranging from parenthood and pornography to Facebook and feminism. He was as funny as ever and fitted neatly into the new world of comedy where observational humour is king. Critics have called Davies a veteran, which seems to imply he is ancient and feels is a little harsh. He was born in 1966, the same year as John Bishop, and is four years younger than Micky Flanagan.
The twentieth Leicester Comedy Festival could not have got off to a better, more high profile start if the TV channel that sponsored it was called Richard instead of Dave. By a nice coincidence the remains of the Plantagenet king found in a local car park were confirmed as royal in the run-up to the opening, giving the organisers the chance to make as many "funny bones" puns as they could manage.
In 2003 I reviewed Ealing Live, a modest little comedy club in a dingy back room at Ealing Film Studios. It was an oddly memorable gig. None of the people involved were particularly famous but for some reason lost in the mists of time Joan Collins was in the audience. And because of her presence rather than because of any great insight I concluded the piece with a painful pun saying that a new comic dynasty - geddit? – was emerging here.
Pages
Zircon - This is a contributing Drupal Theme
Design by
WeebPal.
