May 2013
1.The recent BBC4 documentary Frost on Sketch Shows suggested that the sketch show was in the doldrums because all the best comedians want to be stand-ups these days. Well Frosty should pay more attention, because there are plenty of aspiring performers out there planning to prove you wrong. The difficulty is not making sketch shows, it's making good ones.
If anyone can get the filming of a stand-up DVD right at the Hammersmith Apollo it must be Jack Dee's people. His management company is behind Live at the Apollo so know all the right angles. This gig, which was part of Dee's first tour in six years, was being filmed for the autumn DVD market and should be the perfect present for your grumpy dad.
Update 21/5/13. After this piece was published I was contacted by Chris Cox, self-styled "mind reader who can't read minds" and we had a very interesting chat about the use of plants in magic and mentalist shows. My interview with him appears in italics on the next page after the end of the original article (click on "next" at bottom right of this page).
Sunday Sept 1, 2013. I just heard on the radio that Sir David Frost had died so googled myself to see if I'd ever interviewed him – it's easier than using one's memory these days. I hadn't but I had written about him recently when he presented this TV documentary reviewed below on the history of the sketch show.
Eddie Izzard is the latest big name to be added to the Latitude Festival, which takes place from July 18 - 21. Full line-up and ticket details here.
Here is my review of Eddie Izzard's latest show, first published in the Evening Standard here.
Ventriloquist Nina Conti has always been an intriguing performer. Whereas an arena-filler like Jeff "I Kill You!" Dunham plays the genre largely for easy laughs, Conti is more ambitious, constantly breaking down the barrier between performer, puppet and audience.
I think the first modern example of character comedy I ever saw was Edna Everage, followed shortly by John Shuttleworth about two decades ago. After him there seemed to be a flurry of weird eccentrics on the circuit from the Pub Landlord to Otis Lee Crenshaw via Count Arthur Strong.
When does a topical gag stop being topical? And, maybe more importantly, when does a topical gag stop being funny? I've been thinking about this a lot lately, partly because nearly a year on I'm still hearing comedians do jokes about the sodden Jubilee Pageant and the sodding Olympics and partly because there are so many outlets for up-to-the-nanosecond satire that old jokes – even good ones that would have once had a few days to shine are in danger of becoming redundant more quickly than ever due to overexposure.
This is a week bookended by Michael McIntyre, so if you are like the wag who just posted "thanks for the warning" on my Facebook page and maybe don't appreciate rapidfire, smiley observational humour, take a holiday now. For the remaining millions of you still out there and still reading, I was writing recently about comedians doing low-key try-out gigs in clubs and Michael McIntyre is so used to playing megavenues his gig tonight at the Bloomsbury Theatre is a handy warm-up for his appearance at C4's Comedy Gala next Saturday.
Let's get one thing straight. I'm certainly not backtracking on my opinion of Ben Elton's pitiful sitcom. But at the same time I've found some of the objections to The Wright Way particularly interesting.
Pages
Zircon - This is a contributing Drupal Theme
Design by
WeebPal.
