Comedy
I never understood the appeal of Ken Dodd
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
This week I want to put the boot in to Gogglebox (Channel 4, Fridays). Not the mostly likeable, everyday version,…
No pain, no gain
The best episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm are the ones that make you want to hide behind the sofa, cover…
Bloody minded
Tristan Bernays loves Hollywood blockbusters. His new play, Boudica, is an attempt to put the blood-and-guts vibe of the action…
Loose ends
On Sunday night, Holliday Grainger was on two terrestrial channels at the same time playing a possibly smitten sidekick of…
Second thoughts
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
Brexit the Musical is a peppy satire written by Chris Bryant (not the MP, he’s a lawyer). Musically the show…
London calling
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…
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,…
