Mark Thomas is pretty much a comedy legend. He’s been around for three decades and is as busy and vital as ever. And unpredictable. Just as you think you have him pigeonholed as a satirist he goes and does a brilliant personal show such as Bravo Figaro! This year he is back with Cuckooed, a show about betrayal that is both personal and political.
James Woroniecki is the Director of the 99 Club, which runs Comedy Clubs across London and has been awarded Best London Club at the Chortle Awards for the last four years running. He has an enviable record of nurturing new talent as well as playing host to some of the biggest names in comedy such as Jack Whitehall and Russell Howard.
This year's winner of the Funny Women Final is Jayde Adams. I went to interview her in Walthamstow last week and came away completely knocked out by her energy and charisma. She is bursting with talent. I wrote about her for the Evening Standard here, but she said so much more I've decided to run a transcript of the whole interview below.
It’s a good week for charity gigs and a good week for Daniel Kitson fans too. Kitson’s most recent theatre piece, Analog.Ue, had good reviews but not the usual ecstatic reviews last year. Maybe some people were wishing they could see him at his stand-up best.
When you see a lot of comedy gigs like I do something that is a bit different usually has a head start. And Soiree in a Cemetery was very different. Ticket-holders only discovered the location of this one-off in the afternoon, which meant that excitement was building up even before arriving. There was a bit of anxiety about the weather as autumn had decided to chip in, but the rain stopped, the sky cleared and, as long as you were well-insulated by overcoats and alcohol a good time was had by all.
I’ve always really liked Jon Richardson. Despite being represented by Off The Kerb, whose biggest acts are mainstream shiny-floor, shiny-suited comics, there has always been something different about him. It wasn’t just his curmudgeonly misanthropy – Jack Dee from the same agency has been doing that for years – there seemed to be something deeper niggling him. Or maybe I just related to his low-level OCD and his obsession with putting the knives in the correct cutlery compartment.
Jason Byrne is adding a new interactive element to his forthcoming show, which starts its 28-date UK tour in Sheffield on October 9. The tour follows a successful run at the Edinburgh Festival.
Each year Jason is asked for the name of his touring show and each year Jason has to think up a title. This year he is handing the power back to the people and is asking his audience to name the show for him. Hence the provisional title of You Name The Show.
If you have a broadband connection you will have surely already seen this clip in which David Cameron's speeches are exquisitely edited to fit into the melody of Eminem's Lose Yourself. Last night it had had a million YouTube hits. I woke up this morning and the number had almost doubled.
Fans of the Vic and Bob sitcom House of Fools got a fright when they read that the location of the filming they were hoping to see was nearly 200 miles further away than expected.
Northeners such as Oldham comedian Mick Ferry applied for tickets for the second series which they were told was going to be filmed in Media City, Salford. When the tickets arrived, however, they were surprised to see that the address said that they had to go to Elstree, just outside London.
This interview first appeared in The Times in 2009. At the time Mackenzie Crook was about to appear at the Royal Court Theatre in Jerusalem, which went on to scoop endless awards and be acclaimed and be one of the greatest plays in recent years. You could certainly say that Crook is versatile without fear of a law suit landing on your desk. From Pirates of the Caribbean to The Office he has cornered the market in scrawny, memorable characters, but also, no pun intended, always adds flesh to their bones.
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