Interview
At the start of the Edinburgh Fringe 2016 the Evening Standard asked me to interview someone who would pick up a lastminute.com Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination. I took a punt on Manchester United fan Nish Kumar but it really wasn't a big gamble. Kumar is very much a rising star who has found his voice in recent years.
Here's an interview I did with Romesh Ranganathan for the Evening Standard. Despite what he might seem like onscreen in the flesh Ranganathan is a lovely bloke and easy to chat to. Which is not to say that his perma-grumpy persona on Asian Provocateur is faked. I'm sure he has his bad days like the rest of us. Except that unlike the rest of us when he has a bad day he is very, very funny.
Here is an interview I did with the brilliant Josie Long for the London Evening Standard in the run-up to the opening of her latest show Something Better which is currently at the Soho Theatre.
Sonny and Cher. Laurel and Hardy. History is littered with double acts. And now there is Alex Lowe and Angelos Epithemiou. Lowe is best known as radio phone-in loving OAP Barry from Watford. Burger van-owner Angelos is probably best known for keeping score in Shooting Stars and carrying a plastic shopping bag with him wherever he goes. Beyond The Joke has managed to persuade the man behind the plastic bag, Dan Renton Skinner, to chat to us.
The legend that is Simon Munnery has come up with more original comedy ideas than most comedians have had punchlines. Alan Parker Urban Warrior. League Against Tedium. Cluub Zarathustra and his Fylm concept among others.
Cara Theobold, who played Ivy in Downton Abbey, is one of the stars of E4's forthcoming comedy-meets-horror demon-hunting series Crazyhead. Here she talks about the series, her role in it and much more.
Crazyhead starts in October on E4.
How would you describe Crazyhead?
Barry Crimmins has appeared in the UK before but it was probably before a lot of you reading this were born. Thirty years on he starred in Bobcat Goldthwait's critically acclaimed 2015 biographical documentary, Call Me Lucky, and has carved out a niche as a sharp, left-wing comic.
I first spotted Kerry Godliman over a decade ago when she was in a short-lived Evening Standard-sponsored comedy competition. Greg Davies - whatever happened to him? – won, but I was impressed by Godliman’s cheery, accessible everywoman brand of feminism. She had a particularly good gag about anti-gravity face cream. If it was so gravity-defying why wasn’t it floating above the cosmetics counter? More recently she has become best known as Hannah, the sympathetic manager in Derek.
Bridget Christie, no less, has called Dutch absurdist Hans Teeuwen “the gold standard of comedy” and says that the first time she saw him, in 2008, it was like “watching a hilarious snake slowly digest a rat, while pulling funny faces and playing The Horst Wessel Lied on a tin whistle.” I’m not sure I can improve on that description. To put it bluntly Teeuwen is a unique talent in a class of his own, extremely versatile, extremely unpredictable and extremely exciting.
I’ve been tipping Rob Rouse for stardom for so long it has started to become embarrassing. But he is finally making up for lost time. This year he played Bottom in Ben Elton’s return-to-form Shakespearean sitcom Upstart Crow and cornered the contemporary market for idiot sidekicks. A Christmas special and a second series should cement his reputation as a comic actor.
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