May 2013
"The apotheosis of comic dislocation". It's a description I once read about the Chuckle Brothers, but I think it could just as easily describe Terry Alderton. What on earth is going on in the Essex comic's bonce when he is performing onstage? Weird characters emerge, bizarre conversations erupt, the universe is turned on its head, as Alderton is himself at the end of the gig. Is he talking out of his arse?
The last time I went to see Eddie Pepitone it was downstairs at the Tron pub during the Edinburgh Festival last summer and I had to fight my way past a minor kerfuffle outside. As I squeezed past the group I noticed Hugh Grant at the centre of it. The actor was on a flying visit to the Fringe and also wanted to see Pepitone that night. Unfortunately an issue with IDs among his entourage meant that he didn't make it in.
Three episodes into its third series 10 O'Clock Live seems to have entered adolescence and has got a bit surly and angry. It is good, but it could still be even better. In the first in an occasional series offering careers advice, here is my ten-point plan to making 10 O'Clock Live essential viewing
1. Do something about the rainbow-coloured set – it's like an old disused Top of The Pops set tarted up with Fisher Price paints to look like a children's nightclub.
Interesting to hear today that Lee Mack and Catherine Tate are going to star in a UK remake of the American sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond entitled The Smiths. I can't predict if the UK version, relocated to Cheshire, will be a hit, but it sounds well cast. Both Mack and Tate have a track record at the kind of broad comedy that Raymond excelled at and they also have a track record of working well together.
"Three stars, but it read like a four," "Four stars, but it read like a three," "Five stars, but it read like a one." You can't win when star ratings are added to reviews.
The O2 Arena or Ye Olde Rose & Crown in Walthamstow? For me there is not really any choice. Last night arena-filler Alan Carr popped into the north London pub to try out some new material. It was the kind of surprise that makes a good pub gig into an unforgettable pub gig. And it is the sort of thing that can only really happen in comedy.
In today's Bafta nominee interview Alan Carr talks about his love of being in the limelight and the challenge of trying to get better guests than Graham Norton. The friendly rivalry with Norton continues with the Bafta TV Awards – they are both up for Best Entertainment Performance. This interview first appeared in The Times in 2010. The results are announced on May 12.
The second feature in our series on this year's Bafta nominees is a location report on the making of Twenty Twelve featuring interviews with co-stars Hugh Bonneville and Jessica Hynes first published in The Times last March.
Aziz Ansari, aka Tom Haverford from Parks & Recreation, has just announced a UK date at Hammersmith Apollo on June 15. Let's hope he is as good as he was when I saw him at Soho Theatre in February 2011. Tickets go on sale May 7, details here.
It's a tale of two Eddies this week. The last time I saw Eddie Izzard in March he was doing a short set at the Altitude Festival in Austria before shooting off to perform his new Force Majeure show in Riga as part of a typically epic Euro-trek. The good news is that judging by his brief flying visit Izzard is back on form, mixing his trademark meandering charm with a pithy history lesson taking in Charles I, the Romans and Edward the Confessor among others.
Pages
Zircon - This is a contributing Drupal Theme
Design by
WeebPal.
