Interview
Every couple of years I sit down at my laptop and write the words "why isn't Boothby Graffoe a household name?". It's that time again. I don't like to use the word genius but I'll happily use it when referring to this seasoned musical comic. Graffoe fits into a long line of absurdist comics, from Spike Milligan to Vic and Bob. You don't quite know which direction Graffoe's material is coming from and you often don't know which direction it is going until it gets there.
I'm sure I was not the first person to say that Nunhead-based American Lewis Schaffer is like a real-life Rupert 'King of Comedy' Pupkin and I doubt if I will be the last. But things are changing. In the last year Schaffer - who had always been a car crash comic hellbent on self-destructing onstage even when things were going well – seems to have got his act together. Or at least written a show. His Edinburgh Fringe show had a theme, a narrative and a kicker of a pay-off.
As long as you’ve hit the save key on your Apple Mac you’ll never lose anything. Yeah, right. That’s not what happened here. In late 2013 I interviewed the hardest working man in showbiz Michael Smiley. I’d been a fan ever since he played raving courier Tyres in Spaced. He had also revealed an intriguing, different side to his acting chops in his more recent work with Ben Wheatley in brutal films such as Kill List, Down Terrace and A Field In England.
I interviewed Matt Berry last month at Channel 4's offices near Victoria to tie in with the new series of Toast, which goes out on C4 on Wednesdays at 10.30pm. You can read the Evening Standard feature here, but this is a longer version. To be honest I found Berry rather frustratingly guarded.
You should all know Adam Buxton. From his TV and radio work with Joe Cornish, his appearances in films such as Hot Fuzz and Stardust or his marvellously childish yet gloriously clever multi-media live shows.
The last time I saw James Acaster someone walked in late carrying two pints of lager and Acaster just went “Legend”. It seemed so out of character and out of context during his finely honed latest show, Represent, that it stuck in my mind. As did the rest of the brilliant Foster’s Award nominated set, in which the Kettering comic told the story of the time he did jury service and had great fun painting vivid thumbnail sketches of his fellow jurors. I won’t spoil the details, just go and enjoy them yourselves.
Maverick promoter Bob Slayer has taken over the basement space of 27c Throgmorton Street in the City of London again for another Grotto Festival from December 1 to 21. Listings here. Highlights include Richard Herring, Stewart Lee, Josie Long and some bozo called Nick Helm, who will be closing proceedings on December 21 with his 'Christmas Fuck-Fest'. Have a read of the delightful free content Helm has provided below.
Hello surrealism, meet breast cancer. Beth Vyse's As Funny As Cancer is one of the strangest, loveliest comedy shows I’ve seen in a long while. It takes a degree of skill, courage and also screwball wit to marry absurdist humour to the story of your cancer diagnosis and treatment. Somehow Vyse pulls this off, lobbing in some nice anecdotes about growing up in Stoke-on-Trent, her quirky Croc-wearing dad, having a boyfriend called Michael Jackson and travelling on the number 12 bus in London.
If you look up Comedian's Comedian in a decent dictionary you will probably see a picture of Andrew Maxwell (the one here is by Richard Hardcastle). The Irish stand-up is one of our finest performers. Quite why he is not a much bigger star is one of life's great mysteries.
Kieran Hodgson's 2015 Edinburgh show Lance was staged in the same room as 2014's Foster's Award winner, John Kearns. And for a while it looked as if Hodgson might be picking up the Foster's Award too. In the end he had to make do with only a nomination for his brilliant piece, which explored one man's obsession with cycling in general and Lance Armstrong in particular.
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