Stand-up comedy
The ‘idiot Disneyland’ of Sin City
With his marriage to Joan Didion in difficulties, John Gregory Dunne decamps to Nevada in the early 1970s to capture the dying days of Vegas sleaze
Great Scot
William Cook talks to Billy Connolly – welder, banjo player, comedian, actor, and now artist – about growing up in Glasgow, ditching the mike stand and living with Parkinson’s
How did Richard Herring become the comedy podcast king?
What does it mean to be a successful comic? Richard Herring isn’t sure. He’s been a ‘professional funnyman’ for nearly…
Gagging order
Why has politics turned into stand-up?
Escaping the Fringe
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival: the city is full of glassy-eyed narcissists eating haggis pizza off flyers that say Michael Gove:…
Tears of a clown
Stand-up comedian John Bishop tells Matthew Stadlen about the depression that triggered his career
Cracking up
The troubles of Richard Pryor’s life are well known — from his childhood in a brothel to his self-immolation via…
Bully laughs
The comedy club theory of dictatorship
