Comedy
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…
Taxi ride to the dark side: a thrilling blast of full-strength Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh, I think it’s safe to say, is not a writer who’s mellowing with age. His latest book sees…
Miranda July may be a film director, performance artist, sculptor and designer — but she is no novelist
Miranda July is a funny and brilliant film director, performance artist, sculptor and smartphone app designer. In 2005, she won…
The Voices review: a hateful, repellent, empty film
The Voices is ‘a dark comedy about a serial killer’, which is not an overcrowded genre, and I think we…
The Heckler: how funny really was Spitting Image?
Hold the front page! Spitting Image is back! Well, sort of. A new six-part series, from (some of) the team…
A tatty new theatre offers up a comic gem that’s sure to be snapped up by the BBC
New venue. New enticement. In the undercroft of a vast but disregarded Bloomsbury church nestles the Museum of Comedy. The…
Radio 4’s War and Peace: almost as good as the book
To have listened to Radio 4’s marathon ten-hour adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace as it was being broadcast on…
What unites Churchill, Dali and T.S. Eliot? They all worshipped the Marx Brothers
Ian Thomson celebrates the anarchic genius of Groucho and his brothers
Fortune tellers, pound shops and Orville: why I love Blackpool
Fortune tellers, pound shops and Orville: it’s easy to take the piss out of Blackpool, but William Cook loves it
You shouldn’t watch Dapper Laughs. But you really shouldn’t let the likes of me stop you
As you’ll know by now, I’m big on thinking the right things. Should a thought strike me that m’colleague Rod…
The subversive wonders of Kilkenomics – where economics meets stand-up
‘What is a Minsky moment, anyway?’ asks Gerry Stembridge, an Irish satirist. ‘I’ve been reading about them in the papers…
The greatest sitcom that never was
Funny Girl is the story of the early career of the vivacious, hilarious Sophie Straw, star of the much-loved BBC…
Outnumbered: The Movie (But Crap)
What We Did On Our Holiday is written and directed by Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton, the pair who created…
Frankie Boyle is a cowardly bully, and I’m ashamed I ever stood up for him
‘Outspoken comic Frankie Boyle has called on the BBC to sack “cultural tumour” Jeremy Clarkson.’ Can anyone tell me what’s…
Switching on to a new generation gap
In the world of YouTube and Netflix, generations no longer share a culture
Alex Salmond has already lost — if the Edinburgh Festival is anything to go by
Lloyd Evans tours the Edinburgh Festival in search of clues about the outcome of the referendum
An innocent graduate of Operation Yewtree, Jim Davidson, dazzles in Edinburgh
Let’s start with a nightmare. Wendy Wason, an Edinburgh comedienne, travelled to LA last year accompanied by her husband, who…
The harrowing, inspiring life of Andrew Sachs
Comedians always like to claim that they started making jokes after childhoods made harsh by poverty; that at a formative…
