It’s tempting to put performers into a box. I was thinking about that when I wrote about Joseph Morpurgo and the same applies to David Elms. I first came across Elms at the Musical Comedy Awards in 2014 when his dry-as-a-desert songs won him first prize.
When The John Bishop Show started seven weeks ago I wrote an opinion piece about how impressed I was that it had found some new talent for mainstream TV. The first episode featured Felicity Ward and James Acaster and was a pretty impressive statement of intent
Since then the show had come in for some stick on social media. Someone complained to me about the old school Tiller Girls kicking their exposed legs in the air. Others were not too impressed by Lee Nelson, who is hardly new talent having had his own BBC show already.
I’ve never quite been able to get a handle on Joseph Morpurgo because he has done so many different brilliant things. All I’m sure about is that he is prodigiously talented. He must be because he works with uber-cool tastemakers Invisible Dot. Morpurgo’s inventive Edinburgh show last year, Odessa, found him playing all the characters in a noirish crime comedy inspired by some banal found footage from American TV. He is also part of the Austentatious impro crew who create Austen novels based on audience suggestions.
At last a voice of reason amid the babble of insanity. Will Durst picked up an Edinburgh Comedy Award way back in 1989. He is the epitome of the sharp, eloquent jokesmith who sets out to get laughs but also say something relevant. Durst has performed in front of US Presidents and was a correspondent for the Comedy Channel during the 1992 elections. In 2012 his show Elect to Laugh ran for 41 weeks at San Francisco's Marsh Theatre.
Phil Kay is a comedy legend. Period. Do I really need to say more? The madcap Scot has always done things his own way, occasionally rubbing shoulders with the mainstream but never compromising. He was nominated for a Perrier Award way back in 1993 and landed his own Channel 4 series. Recently Nick Helm appeared naked on his BBC3 show but his privates were pixilated. Kay did the same thing on his show but was fully exposed. You never really know what he is going to do next. I’ve seen him have awful gigs but even those are eventful.
Felicity Ward was one of the first comedians to make a splash on The John Bishop Show. I tuned in expecting the usual Saturday night supermarket checkout/airport security blandness and instead got this fast-talking Australian on a roll with material about racism, religion and sexism. I think the audience was a little taken aback too, but thanks to Ward’s sheer force of personality they soon went with it.
Stephen Merchant is used to being noticed. At 6ft 7in tall it is difficult for him to be inconspicuous as he arrives at his publicist’s Covent Garden office. Walking into the conference room he ducks to avoid a beam. He has probably been ducking since puberty.
You can’t just do a sketch show with just sketches these days. You have to do it backwards. Or each member has to do their own separate show at the same time. Or the audience has to do the sketches for you. It feels as if the familiar format has to be subverted in some way to keep it fresh. The Pin – witty wise guys Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen – have been making a splash by getting jiggy with the genre for the last few years and are now back with a new show, Ten Seconds With The Pin.
Last year Australian comic Bec Hill set out to perform an award-winning show at the Edinburgh Festival. She felt she had to pick up a prize as she had drunkenly told former Superman Dean Cain that she was an award-winning comic. This alcohol-fuelled way of motivating herself seemed to work. Hill picked up the inaugural Barry Award for Best Show, voted for by other comedians at the Edinburgh Fringe. She also won a Three Weeks Editor's Award for her children's show with Tom Goodliffe. Bec And Tom's Awesome Laundry.
There’s an old showbiz anecdote about the trajectory of stardom that goes something like this: “Who is X? Get me X. Get me a cheaper X. Get me a younger X. Who is X?” In this case X is probably Tim Vine and the younger version is Darren Walsh. Not that Vine is likely to get to the final forgotten stage for a long time yet if ever, but Walsh is definitely cut from the same punmeistery cloth. His style is witty, silly, playful wordplay broken up by silly, witty, playful illustrations.
Pages
Zircon - This is a contributing Drupal Theme
Design by
WeebPal.
