Comedy
Show up and show off
The Edinburgh Festival was founded as a response to war. The inaugural event, held in 1947, was the brainchild of…
Russell Crowe knows how to wear a pair of inverted commas: The Nice Guys reviewed
Regular filmgoers must be losing count of the Rabelaisian revelries they’ve been invited to of late. You may recognise the…
Isn’t it puke-inducing being lectured about poverty by millionaire comics?
Going Forward (BBC4, Thursdays) is a BBC comedy about the continuing adventures of Kim Wilde, the fat, cynical but lovable…
James Delingpole is loving Ben Elton's new Shakespeare sitcom
There’s no way of saying this without shredding the last vestiges of my critical credibility, but this new Ben Elton…
Is there a funnier opera than Gerald Barry’s Importance of Being Earnest?
Comic opera is no laughing matter. Seriously, when was the last time you laughed out loud in the opera house?…
The rotten fruits of Peter Maxwell Davies’s modernism
The intransigence of Maxwell Davies, Boulez and Stockhausen is coming home to roost. Here were three composers, famous if not…
Slapstick enthusiasts will love this Branagh and Brydon farce: The Painkillers reviewed
Sir Ken’s excellent West End residency continues with a sugar-rich confection. Sean Foley has adapted and updated an elderly French farce…
A senile Putin becomes a parody of his own parody
The decrepitude of old age is a piteous sight and subject. In his second book Michael Honig — a doctor-turned-novelist…
David Quantick’s The Mule: lost in the world of translation
For those who read the weekly music press during the 1980s, David Quantick’s was a name you could rely on.…
When Groucho Marx lectured T.S. Eliot
Groucho Marx was delighted when he heard that the script for one of his old Vaudeville routines was being reprinted…
The Mother is meaningless - I predict great things for it
Florian Zeller has been reading Pinter. And Pinter started out in repertory thrillers where suspense was created by delaying revelations…
An Egyptian comedy of errors
The Yacoubian Building, the first novel of the Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany, sold well over a million copies in…
Dreams don’t have to make sense - but TV dramas do: Peter & Wendy reviewed
On the face of it, ITV’s Peter & Wendy sounded like a perfect family offering for Boxing Day: an adaptation…
Tricycle’s Ben Hur is magnificent in its superficiality - a masterpiece of nothing
It’s the target that makes the satire as well as the satirist. Is the subject powerful, active, relevant and menacing?…
Victorian music-hall comedy wasn’t funny. Why pretend it was?
Let’s start this week with a joke: ‘You know Mrs Kelly? Do you know Mrs Kelly? Her husband’s that little…
Shakespeare at his freest and most exuberant: The Wars of the Roses reviewed
The RSC’s The Wars of the Roses solves a peculiar literary problem. Shakespeare’s earliest history plays are entitled Henry VI…
Woody Allen: a life of jazz, laughter, depression —and a few misdemeanours
Woody Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg), the prolific, Oscar-winning auteur, New Orleans-style jazz clarinettist, doyen of New York delicatessen society,…
A gleeful vision of the future from Margaret Atwood
What could happen in literature to a young couple — or a pair of young couples — who fall off…
Where comics find their Edinburgh comfort food
Mum’s, or to use its full title, Mum’s Great Comfort Food, is a restaurant in Edinburgh designed to soothe itinerant…
Edinburgh Fringe highlights: world-class improv, Bible study and an hour with a gentle genius
Showstopper! The Improvised Musical offers a brand new song-and-dance spectacular at every performance. It opens with a brilliantly chaotic piece…
Feels like Chekhov scripted by a Chekhov app: Three Days in the Country at the Lyttleton reviewed
Chekhov so dominates 19th-century Russian drama that Turgenev doesn’t get much of a look-in. His best known play, A Month…
She's Funny That Way isn't funny at all
The writer and director Peter Bogdanovich has made three of my favourite films of all time (The Last Picture Show,…
Imagine if Are You Being Served? had starred Laurence Olivier: ITV’s Vicious reviewed
Monday saw the return of possibly the weirdest TV series in living memory. Imagine a parallel universe in which Are…
Jackie Mason reveals the secret of stand-up: avoid fried food
What does it take to be a stand-up comic? Jackie Mason has absolutely no idea
Top Five reviewed: Chris Rock hits rock bottom
The oeuvre of Chris Rock may not be fully known in this parish. He was the African-American stand-up who made…
