Musical comedian Adam Kay has encountered a problem with people buying tickets for his current Adam Kay’s Smutty Christmas Songs tour.
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.
It's the final of the Leicester Square Theatre New Comedian of the Year this Sunday. The show will be compered by Richard Herring and the line-up has now been confirmed. There are some interesting names on the list. Yuriko Kotani won the BBC Radio New Comedy Award last week. Luca Cupani won So You Think You're Funny? in Edinburgh in August (Kotani was runner-up). Swedish comedian Olaf Falafel was recenty in the news when his short film showing how to make your own Donald Trump out of a whoopee cushion and a croissant went viral.
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.
London-based Japanese comedian Yuriko Kotani has won the BBC Radio New Comedy Award 2015.
The final, hosted by Patrick Kielty at the Comedy Store, was broadcast live on BBC Radio 2’s Steve Wright In The Afternoon Show with six comedians battling it out for the coveted accolade. This year’s finalists were Athena Kugblenu, Andy Storey, Ken Cheng, Michael Stranney, Russ Peers and Yuriko Kotani.
Romesh Ranganathan is to join Ben Miller and Countdown's Rachel Riley for a new ITV1 series entitled It's Not Rocket Science.
A pilot was shot earlier this year and Ben Miller confirmed that a full series was being made at an ITV event in late 2015.
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.
Comedian Sara Pascoe has announced a major new UK tour for 2016, entitled Animal.
The tour starts on 6th May in Aldershot and tickets are now on sale,
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