Comedy

Rob Auton (Chris) in Frank Skinner’s Nina’s Got News

Is Frank Skinner the new Alan Bennett? Edinburgh Fringe round-up

25 August 2018 9:00 am

For recovering teetotallers, like me, Thinking Drinkers is the perfect Edinburgh show. On stage, two sprucely dressed actors perform sketches…

Full of bog-standard, if annoyingly effective, emotional manipulation: The Foreign Doctors Are Coming reviewed

11 August 2018 9:00 am

Surprising I know, but judging from The Foreign Doctors Are Coming (Channel 4, Tuesday), Britain mightn’t be such a bad…

Robert Redford turns his hand to radio

11 August 2018 9:00 am

Much ado is being made of the latest listening figures, which have suggested that the percentage of those aged between…

Comedy is entirely unsuited to the ‘Edinburgh hour’

4 August 2018 9:00 am

Edinburgh. Why do comics do it? We invariably lose money. Even if you don’t pay for your venue, the cost…

Sacha Baron Cohen isn’t funny – especially when he’s mocking the powerless

28 July 2018 9:00 am

Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest series Who Is America? isn’t funny. But then, nor was his terrible 2016 movie The Brothers…

Life is a cabaret: Barry Humphries and Meow Meow

Barry Humphries on Trump, transgender ‘rat-baggery’ and causing maximum offence

21 July 2018 9:00 am

‘I’m an amateur,’ Barry Humphries tells me. The Australian polymath uses the word in its older sense of ‘enthusiast’ rather…

Why has the National given over its largest stage to one of the nation’s smallest talents?

16 June 2018 9:00 am

The National has made its largest stage available to one of the nation’s smallest talents. If Brian Friel had been…

Exhilaratingly original, C4’s Flowers is much more than just a ‘dark comedy’

16 June 2018 9:00 am

On Wednesday, BBC Four made an unexpectedly strong case that the human body is a bit rubbish. Our ill-designed spines,…

What’s the point of Philomena Cunk?

28 April 2018 9:00 am

Because I’m a miserable old reactionary determined to see a sinister Guardianista plot in every BBC programme I watch, I…

Male order: Juliette Binoche as Isabelle in Let the Sunshine In

Maxine Peake is blistering in Funny Cow

21 April 2018 9:00 am

Two films about women this week. One, Funny Cow, is about a woman who daringly takes on men at their…

Portentous, po-faced but also highly imaginative: The City & The City reviewed

7 April 2018 9:00 am

BBC2 has a new drama series for Friday nights. The main character is a world-weary middle-aged police inspector with an…

The BBC admit they’re not ready to switch off analogue radio

24 March 2018 9:00 am

As Bob Shennan, the BBC’s director of radio and music admitted this week, there are almost two million podcast-only listeners…

Intriguing but also baffling: The Assassination of Gianni Versace reviewed

10 March 2018 9:00 am

By common consent, including Bafta’s, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story was one of the best TV dramas…

A right laugh: Geoff Norcott

What’s it like being the only right-wing comic?

3 February 2018 9:00 am

Geoff Norcott is lean, talkative, lightly bearded and intense. Britain’s first ‘openly Conservative’ comedian has benefited enormously from the Brexit…

Sun readers will be disappointed – E.M. Phwoar-ster it is not: Howards End reviewed

18 November 2017 9:00 am

Any readers of the Sun who excitedly tuned in to Howards End on Sunday night with their pause button at…

I never understood the appeal of Ken Dodd

11 November 2017 9:00 am

It’s always odd to hear a familiar voice on a different programme, playing an alternative role. They never sound quite…

The left-wing bias on Celebrity Gogglebox was excruciating

11 November 2017 9:00 am

This week I want to put the boot in to Gogglebox (Channel 4, Fridays). Not the mostly likeable, everyday version,…

Divine comedy: even if Larry David is as big a prize twonk in real life as he is on Curb we can hardly begrudge him for it

No pain, no gain

30 September 2017 9:00 am

The best episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm are the ones that make you want to hide behind the sofa, cover…

Killer queen: Gina McKee as Boudica. (Photo: Steve Tanner)

Bloody minded

30 September 2017 9:00 am

Tristan Bernays loves Hollywood blockbusters. His new play, Boudica, is an attempt to put the blood-and-guts vibe of the action…

Loose ends

23 September 2017 9:00 am

On Sunday night, Holliday Grainger was on two terrestrial channels at the same time playing a possibly smitten sidekick of…

Second thoughts

9 September 2017 9:00 am

I had planned to review David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s new Channel 4 sitcom Back without constantly referring to their…

The many sides of satire

19 August 2017 9:00 am

Brexit the Musical is a peppy satire written by Chris Bryant (not the MP, he’s a lawyer). Musically the show…

London calling

12 August 2017 9:00 am

What is the Edinburgh Fringe? It’s a sabbatical, a pit stop, a pause-and-check-the-map opportunity for actors who don’t quite know…

Miranda Richardson in Robert Wilson’s 1996 production of Orlando for the EIF

Show up and show off

29 July 2017 9:00 am

The Edinburgh Festival was founded as a response to war. The inaugural event, held in 1947, was the brainchild of…

A side order of extra Marmite comes in the considerable silhouette of Russell Crowe as Jackson Healy

Russell Crowe knows how to wear a pair of inverted commas: The Nice Guys reviewed

4 June 2016 9:00 am

Regular filmgoers must be losing count of the Rabelaisian revelries they’ve been invited to of late. You may recognise the…