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Showing posts with label comedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comedy. Show all posts
Friday, February 21, 2020
Friday, February 21, 2020
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Shows where a performer bemoans their crappy love life and dating experiences are a dime a dozen. Honestly, there are some nights out at the theatre where I wish the maxim 'write what you know' had never been invented. However, if the London fringe theatre scene is a soup of overly intimate confessionals, Emilia Stawicki's Thank You and Goodnight floats to the top like a particularly crunchy crouton.
This one-woman show traces Stawicki's love life back to her school days: mapping out the Catholic guilt that stunted her sexual development, the series of disappointing men who flitted through her life and her own feelings of inadequacy.
Ordinarily, I feel a bit short-changed when a performer hits upon the novel idea of charging people to attend their group therapy session, but Stawicki is more than entertaining enough to make it work. I probably don't need to go into too much more detail than pointing out that she's very funny and charismatic.
Those are two qualities that are rarer than you'd imagine in comedy and theatre, but every inch of her performance feels calculated to draw laughs. It's the way she manages to lock eyes with everyone in the audience during the show and the conspiratorial way she draws us into her mindset. My usual barometer for this kind of thing working is whether the show can actually draw a couple of laughs from me. Well, mission: accomplished. In spades.
In addition, though this is a small, low-budget, hand-made sort of affair, it feels very professional. There's a lot of quick music cues and lighting changes throughout the show, and reliably hitting all them gives the show a confidence and slickness that goes a long way. So credit to whoever's on tech, as it's nice to see a small-scale show that's clearly been well-drilled.
In addition, Stawicki is such a pleasant person to spend an hour with that the interactive portions of the show aren't remotely intimidating. There are often moments where she interacts with us - and I was probably asking for it when I chose to sit in the front row centre in the seat with a banana taped to the bottom.
No matter what, you'll find something to identify with in Thank You and Goodnight. It is neither groundbreaking nor particularly ambitious, but it's funny, warm-hearted, well-performed and concise. I can think of many worse ways to spend an hour.
Thank You and Goodnight is next on at the Camden People's Theatre, March 8th. Tickets here.
Friday, May 17, 2019
Friday, May 17, 2019
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Reviewed by David James
Rating: 
Quarter past ten at night turns out to be a very good slot for a Soho comedy/cabaret show. The tourists have scuttled back to their hotels, the clubs are yet to kick into gear, and there's enough time to grab a decent dinner and a few laugh-loosening drinks in. All of which works in Witt 'n Camp's favour.
Witt 'n Camp are Charlie Howitt and Holly Campbell, who are the full entertainment package: singing, dancing, telling jokes and performing like old school vaudevillians. They serve up a finely tuned hour of entertainment, consisting of songs that are comedy sketches, comedy sketches that are songs and a lot that resists easy categorisation.
The initial impression you get is "what the fuck is going on"? The show opens with the pair in burly policeman costumes stalking around the stage and fighting one another, then mildly antagonising the audience (sit in the front row at your peril). Things only get stranger from there: the pair morphing into sexually unfulfilled Irish chickens, strangely louche hippies and bitchy opera divas.
But though the scope is wide, their talents are consistently (and occasionally jaw-droppingly) impressive. Their opera divas sing with beautiful precision and skill, managing to convert Nicki Minaj's machine-gun pop masterpiece Super Bass into an opera number. These moments and the other numbers in the same vein are some seriously eye-catching work, perfectly showcasing their vocal and creative talents.
Beyond that, things get head-scratchingly odd. There's a multi-part saga about bored and murderous cannibalistic chickens that's set to lilting folk strings, featuring the laconic pair squatting down to squeeze out eggs. One smashes and, staring at the gooey albumen dripping between her fingers, the chicken says "I don't know how I feel about this". Maybe it's the late hour and maybe it's a mildly soused audience, but you just kinda go with it.
At times Witt 'n Camp reminded me of Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie's Flight of the Conchords. Like them, they display an almost infuriatingly natural grasp of melody and lyricism, combined with a refreshing absence of cynicism and a willingness to get silly without any ironic winking at the audience. As such they're extremely easy to like, which makes for an hour that goes down very smoothly.
That said, if there were a bit more connective tissue between the various segments the show could really lift off. It seems a bit ungrateful to complain about 'merely' receiving an entertaining show, but Witt 'n Camp come across as if they're searching for a thesis to bring together these disparate ideas and characters. Then again, perhaps the scrappy and rough around the edges style is what makes the audience instinctively like the pair so much.
Howitt and Campbell are working from a solid bedrock of talent - whatever they turn their hands to will be, at bare minimum, barrels of fun.
Witt 'n Camp is at the Soho Theatre until 18 May. Tickets here.
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
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There's an outside chance I'll be incinerated in nuclear fire by the time you read this. Who knows what'll happen if Trump manages to light the North Korean touchpaper and spark off World War III? And as a capital and dock, Edinburgh is a sure target. By tomorrow my life might be just another statistic in the Trump/Kim ForeverWar.
But at least I got to see Trumpageddon first, which gives audiences a weirdly accurate simulation of sharing oxygen with President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, less played and more spiritually inhabiting the body of Simon Jay. Over the space of an hour, we gawp at the most dangerously tumescent ego on the planet running rampant.
But at least I got to see Trumpageddon first, which gives audiences a weirdly accurate simulation of sharing oxygen with President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, less played and more spiritually inhabiting the body of Simon Jay. Over the space of an hour, we gawp at the most dangerously tumescent ego on the planet running rampant.
The show largely consists of one long improv session, Jay's Trump answering whatever question the audience wants to throw at him. At the performance I saw, he took a lot of personal abuse, along with weirder questions about whether he likes Harry Potter, or whether he has the right to continue living. He reacts to these extremely Trumpily, casually insulting the audience's accents, hometown, name and whether they hesitate when asking the question.
Interspersed with this are a couple of skits. Jay briefly plays Melania, gropes his Secret Service protection and, in an extremely memorable image, cavorts around the stage clutching an inflatable globe singing He's Got The Whole World Is In His Hands. Jay is a quick-witted improviser, never for a moment letting the tangerine mask slip (the closest he comes is deciding that picking on a 13-year-old girl isn't a good look).
But though the event is generally lighthearted and gently scatological, with Trump basically akin to a dirty old man (albeit a peculiarly orange one), the event is leavened with a layer of horror that this monster is actually leading the free world. In an interview with The Guardian last year Jay said he didn't think he would be able to play Trump if he won the 2016 election as it would be “too depressing to satirise”.
It's not too depressing, but boy does it come close. Over the last two years we've gone from laughing at the inherent ridiculousness of this bonehead, secretly enjoying watching him ran rampant over the not-so-crypto-fascists and Randian gargoyles of the Republican Party, to laughing at the absurd long shot a pussy-grabbin', obviously corrupt lunatic had over a woman who seemed eminently qualified for the job to laughing... well... because what else can you do but laugh when we're in straits as dire as these?
Simon Jay gives us one hell of a target to mock. He's clearly pored over Trump's rallies with a fine toothcomb, identifying every gesticulatory flourish, squint of the eyes, tightening of the lips and alpha-male looming over the microphone stand. Jay allows the spirit of Trump to inhabit his body and personality so fully I'm a little scared for the guy's sanity (he remains in character after the show, mingling with the crowd outside). It can't be good for anyone's mental health to spend this much time intertwined with Trump - the performative equivalent of staring directly into the sun for a couple of hours.
So much of Trumpageddon is audience participation that mileage may vary depending on who's in the audience. I can't be sure, but I suspect mine wasn't the most fertile of terms of improvisation: a lot of questioners seizing their moment in the spotlight to do their own generally unfunny 'bit'. Jay's Trump treats these people with the contempt they deserve, though this puts you in the awkward position of siding with him.
These are dark days. As I type this the real Trump is threatening that North Korean aggression “will be met with fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before." I can find gallows humour in much of the Trump presidency - who wouldn't giggle at 'Covfefe', the rise and fall of Anthony Scaramucci or the fabled piss tape (I want to believe...). But it is difficult to maintain a grin at the prospect of Trump incompetently bungling the world into nuclear war.
Trumpageddon is great fun. It's full of laughs and is a fine achievement in mimicry for Jay. But it's difficult to shake that shiver from your spine.
Trumpageddon is at the Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh Aug 10-15, 17-22, 24-28. Tickets here.
Monday, February 20, 2017
Monday, February 20, 2017
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It's always nice being a theatre critic when family comes to visit from out of town. Turning up at the press desk to get your name ticked off a special list, having a couple of complimentary drinks and settling down to whatever it is you've signed up to write about that night - it's a good look. So, when I got invited to This is Not Culturally Significant on the same weekend my Dad was in town, I snapped up a couple of comp tickets.
I didn't do any research into what the show was - I just liked the title. It's a sentiment that's run through my head during countless half-baked conceptual snoozefests with an over-inflated sense of self-importance. Plus, hey, it's the Vault Festival. Not only is the venue dead cool but the shows are only about an hour long, even if something's rubbish it won't be rubbish for long.
In retrospect I maybe should have done a tiny bit of research: the confluence of all the above left me sat next to my Dad as we watched a butt-naked man with his legs spread, rhythmically manipulating his cock while girlishly squealing "oh my god my pussy is soooo wet!" Ah right. It's one of those shows.
Said cock-manipulator is Adam Scott-Rowley, founder of Out of Spite Theatre. The company's mission statement is to create "confrontational, unsettling and high-intensity theatre". Mission accomplished.
This is Not Culturally Significant introduces us to a dizzyingly fast-paced gallery of grotesques: Scott-Rowley shuffles between characters like a magician with a deck of cards, presenting us with an abused housewife, her ramrod-straight bastard of a husband, an American porn star, a sadistic Oxford don, a homeless junkie and several more besides. Each of these roles has their own particular body language and voice, and are cycled between at breakneck speed.
Very quickly the nudity justifies itself. I've seen many shows and performance art pieces with full frontal nudity before, and there's always a risk that it becomes the centre of the show. Here it allows Scott-Rowley to crank up his chameleonic abilities and vividly bringing each character to life. It also brings a subtle element of danger and unpredictability to the show - with his dick bouncing around nothing seems outside the realm of possibilities.
The nudity also levels the social playing field between the characters, blurring the distinctions between a snooty Professor and crack-addled homeless lady. The fast pace of the show blurs the lines between these personalities, exposing life as a tightly woven tapestry of furtive orgasm, fetishistic pleasure and sexual debasement. It's a somewhat nihilistic world that leaves an acid tang in the mouth - but it's also all too plausible.
Having now done a bit of research I've learned that this show's previous (well-received) run at the Edinburgh Festival was fully clothed. It's difficult to imagine - the full frontal nudity so central to the show that it wouldn't be half as good without it.
That said, Scott-Rowley quickly proves not only a talented physical contortionist but possessed of a puckish rubberface and an acrobatic voice. He's particularly great at flipping a switch and descending into diabolical malevolence, his eyes flickering with a psychotic Gerald Scarfe glint. There's also something undeniably Rowan Atkinson-ish to the wheedle in his voice and the demented narcissism with which his characters prevent themselves.
This is Not Culturally Significant is a serious breath of theatrical fresh air. The Vault Festival is riddled with sentimental and self-centred journeys of discovery through fatherhood, mental illness or whatever - but this whips through these dusty tunnels like a nuclear blast wave, making damn near everything else look staid and tame by comparison.
On top of that it's also funny as hell. I liked it. The audience liked it. My Dad loved it. It's finished at the Vaults now, but if (when?) it returns to the London stage make a bee-line for that ticket desk.
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
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What better way to spend a drizzly and miserable Monday evening than with Cock and Fanny? Ho ho ho, but seriously folks - I'm not talking about fucking. I'm talking about An Evening with Cock and Fanny (FYI if you're at work I don't recommend Google image searching that title), a sketch comedy show nestled in the performance space above the Hen and Chickens pub. Cock is Matthew Howell and Fanny is Lauren Taylor, and they're setting out to prove that sketch comedy isn't dead.
Granted, though it might not actually be dead, it is definitely very nearly dead. Back in the 90s and 2000s you couldn't move without tripping over some star-studded sketch behemoth: be it The Fast Show, Little Britain, The Catherine Tate Show or many, many more. You'd think that the era of YouTube and self-publishing would have brought about a renaissance, but apparently not. Now Howell and Taylor have banded together to "have one last crack at the sketch comedy whip".
Let's get the most important thing out of the way early on - Howell and Taylor are funny. Seems obvious, but you'd be surprised how many performers fail to clear this very simple bar. Very, very broadly they fit your archetypal Two Ronnies style class differences - Howell tending to play Hugh Grantishly clueless poshboys and Taylor playing straightforward working class women. It's a comedy combo as old as the hills - cos it works.
Helping things is their obvious chemistry - they started as 'bickering' housemates and have a rock-solid feel for each other's rhythms and comic timing. Being able to sense that their comedy partnership is organic rather than artificial works wonders, we feel as if we're in on the joke.
However, when it comes to the actual material things are a bit rough around the edges. The obvious highlight is a genius sketch in which a man who's been in a relationship for ten years confesses that he doesn't know his partner's name. Firstly, I'm terrible with names, so I can sympathise with the poor guy. Secondly, there's a surreal beauty to the situation compounded by how well the pair have thought through how this could work. Also, it's got a killer punchline. Gently twisted reality like this reminds me of my personal sketch faves: Chris Morris' Blue Jam.
There's a couple of other decent ideas for sketches, though a couple aim for targets too big and obvious. For example one about contemporary picky eaters (vegans, gluten-intolerance, allergies and so on) is performed fairly well, though this it navigates overly well trodden comedic ground. Other sketches suffer from going on a couple of seconds too long - once the punchline has been delivered we're just spinning wheels until the next scene.
On top of that there's the straightforward observation that there just isn't much to the show. Despite some admirable attempts to pad things out with fourth wall busting connective tissue, there's only maybe 5 or 6 sketches and the curtain falls a mere 35 minutes after it rises. As a critic it's quite refreshing to be home before 9pm, but I doubt I'd be quite so generous if I'd forked out for a ticket.
Despite this, Howell and Taylor genuinely do have something. They're both personable and charismatic, share a promising imagination and, once more for emphasis, they're both actually funny. But this isn't quite the show it could be: while it succeeds at being basically entertaining it's crying out for a bit more content and some judicious editing. I'm not too worried - this pair have clearly got the goods, they just to deploy them a bit more effectively.
★★
An Evening with Cock and Fanny is at the Hen and Chickens until 4 August. Tickets here.
Friday, April 8, 2016
Friday, April 8, 2016
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Labels opens with Enoch Powell's notorious 'rivers of blood' speech, then segues through Idi Amin, Jeremy Clarkson and Donald Trump. We conclude with the infamous 1964 Conservative slogan: "If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour". The process neatly traces the skeleton of contemporary bigotry to the current day. The language shifts, the tone changes and the arguments gently morph, but the core remains the same: fear of those who're 'different'.
The show goes on to probe the infinite ways that racism manifests: sometimes blatantly, sometimes subtly. The vehicle for this is the life, family and heritage of writer/narrator Joe Sellman-Leava. He's a personable, eager-to-please sort of guy, hailing from a small village in Devon. Ordinarily that'd be a decent potted biography, yet Joe quickly explains that things aren't so simple for him.
With a white, English Mum and a Dad from India (by way of Uganda) he's frequently assailed by people inquiring where he's 'really' from. "Cheltenham?" he innocently responds, but we all know what they really mean: "You're not white. You don't look suitably English. You're an outsider. What label can I mentally file you away as?"
Joe talks us through various incidents throughout his life: being bullied in primary school by kids doing a comedy Indian accent, hearing people call him 'Paki' behind his back, strangers yelling abuse at him on the street and even getting racially abused by DMs on Tinder. We hear about his family history; his Dad forced to abandon life in Uganda after Amin decreed that Indians were exploiting hardworking Ugandans; his mother having to deal with prejudice for being in an interracial relationship and the various bigotry they've all had to deal with down the year - culminating in the family deciding to change its name from Patel to Sellman-Leava, in the hope of sidestepping discrimination.
Sounds pretty heavy right? Fortunately, Joe keeps things relatively light. In between the sobering accounts of discrimination there's decent wodges of straightforward comedy, gentle audience interaction and a moment where we all make paper planes and throw them at him. Joe's got this enviable easy-going charisma - a little bit vulnerable, a little bit sarcastic, all sincere.
This all makes the moments of naked anger that much more visceral. Towards the closing scenes the light-heartedness is jettisoned as we explore the current, very real consequences of bigotry: gently bobbing corpses in the Mediterranean. Quoting Katie Hopkins ("Rescue boats? I’d use gunships to stop migrants. Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad. I don't care.") he launches into an impassioned diatribe about the essential stupidity of racism, asking why lives from one patch of dirt are considered worthless and lives from another exalted.
While the woes of a middle-class Devon boy are all well and good, it's here that Labels really shows its teeth. There's a humanist thread in Labels that begins in the gentle domestic anecdotes, runs through the re-enacted portrayals of racism suffered by Joe and reaches a climax with the current refugee crisis.
Okay, so Labels isn't exactly offering a mindblowingly fresh perspective on racism and bigotry, but it's precisely this kind of sincere, friendly, funny yet serious as hell show that exposes the idiocy and inherent misery of discrimination and bigotry. Concise, smart and movingly performed - it's a winner.
★★★★
Labels is at the Theatre Royal Stratford East until 30 April. Tickets here.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Saturday, February 27, 2016
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Eggs is aptly named. We open on an argument that vegetarians should eat eggs, one is obsessed with their conception as an IVF baby, egg props dot the scenery - even the costumes are color coordinated in yolky yellows and creamy albumen whites.
It's a distinctive motif for a distinctive show. Written by Florence Keith-Roach (co-starring with Amani Zardoe) we follow the gently differing life trajectories of two university friends in their late twenties. It's an age-old split; one immersing themselves in boho studenty arrested development and the other deciding on a life of classical domesticity is the route for them.
This relationship is explored through a chronologically scattered series of scenes. At first they appear a bit disconnected, functioning as mere skeleton for a series of comedy sketches. But as we get to know the two, we understand the fault lines in their relationship and how it informs their interactions. Crucially, by the time we've rolled into the final scenes, we care.
There's a big ol' pile of stuff to praise here, and right at the top is Keith-Roach's straight-up magnificent writing. From scene one you can practically sniff the talent, and the audience perceptibly loosens up as we collectively realise we're in safe hands. Funniest parts are an examination of what it's like to have nits as an adult, a description of what it's like to go out with a pair of love eggs jammed in your knickers and a downright hilarious recounting of guilty drunken mutual masturbation.
While the show has a firm grasp on easygoing farce, it also demonstrates bravery in going to dark places. There's precious few other shows in which one of the leads would graphically fantasise about violently murdering a pregnant woman and her foetus, and maintain audience sympathy. Then to cap that off with a top-class punchline? Out-standing.
Underneath the good times is a sober and sincere examination of contemporary femininity. These women are being tugged in a hundred different directions at once; told that they've got be Barbie doll hairless to get a man, whilst simultaneously shamed for acceding to misogynistic beauty standards. They're expected to be nurturing, responsible mothers and also a demon in the sheets. Assertive in the workplace yet maintain a submissive feminine aura. All this bubbles away in a dramatic cauldron, Keith-Roach eventually zeroing in on fertility and the womb in an effort to decode the mystery: hence Eggs.
Of course, a script this good is inert without the performances to match, so it's fortunate that Keith-Roach and Zardoe have the chops to do it justice. Both women are insanely charismatic and an absolute pleasure to watch. Keith-Roach has an excellent line in oblivious eccentricity, that gradually grows more and more tinged with pathos. Zardoe plays straight-woman, yet successfully conveys the goofier moments with aplomb.
Both women match this with a knack for physical comedy. Attention to detail shines throughout, visible in the contrast between two women's body language as they stretch after exercise and during a late MDMA themed night out.
The Vault Festival can sometimes be a bit hit and miss (though it's a consistently lovely place to be), but shows like this make the whole endeavour worthwhile. Everything, from the performances, the writing, the costuming - even the lighting and environmental effects - are ace. Eggs is an all round class act and an easy show to recommend.
★★★★
Friday, February 19, 2016
Friday, February 19, 2016
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Mental illness is no laughing matter.
Well, not usually.
One Under is a one woman comedy show by Amy Fleming that explores attitudes to mental illness. Equal parts social experiment/personal catharsis/ersatz game show, the hour long piece sets out to understand what makes us tick.
Fleming, a graduate in Molecular Medicine, approaches her subject with a pleasantly thorough faux-scientific rigour. At various times we're quizzed as to whether certain quotes indicate mental illness, given a broad outline of genetics and epigenetics and gently guided through ways of dealing with the onset of crippling depression.
Large chunks of the show are autobiographical. Fleming explains that the key event in her childhood was her father's suicide, an event that's reverberated throughout her entire life. Binding this together with her knowledge of biology, she ponders whether she's inherited her father's genetic predisposition for depression.
In candid tones she reveals the existence of her mental 'bully'; that weaselly, nagging voice at in the back of your head whispering that your efforts are doomed to failure (just like always). She asks whether a flirtation with suicide is really that worrying, tells us about her teenage crying jags and, most uncomfortably, simulates a performance nightmare, including a shameful muttered apology to her Mum.
Right now you're probably thinking that this sounds like a complete and utter downer. Well it isn't - Fleming is like a top chef when it comes to maintaining a balance in her dish. Sure you get a teaspoon of uncomfortable confession here, a pinch of tragedy there, but they're leavened with big heaping dollops of straightforwardly charming comedy.
Fleming quickly proves a charismatic and entertaining host, effortlessly corralling her audience exactly where she wants them. It's a bit risky to have a 'serious' show with large amounts of audience interaction - you only need one drunken loudmouth for things to go seriously off-piste. But Fleming knows what she's doing - keeping us so entertained and avoiding excessive preaching.
Awareness of the scope and seriousness of mental illness is an important topic and Fleming does such a good job of communicating her experiences with it that any criticism feels a touch churlish. Nonetheless, the game show sequences of the show are a little bit scrappy; with the audience occasionally mildly perplexed about what we're being asked or what we're trying to achieve.
I get that the gameshow format is merely the cream cracker on which the delicious brie of mental illness awareness is layered, but it stands out as an area that could be tightened up a smidge.
But hey, this is good stuff. I'm often a bit wary of shows that approach depressing subjects with irreverent humour - in my experience cutesey tweeness is never far away. So it's to Fleming's credit that she excises every last trace of "hippy dippy wanky bullshit". She leaves the stage for us to ponder a marvellously poignant image - an animated CT scan of her brain.
A great finale, though it means she doesn't get a proper round of applause.
She deserves one.
★★★★
One Under is at the Vault Festival until 21st February. Details and tickets here.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Thursday, February 11, 2016
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My Son's Husband is an amiable sort of show. Adapted from Daniele Falleri's 2012 Italian play Il Marito di Mio Figlio, Raffaele Cericola of Night Express Live brings a distinctly European brand of high-strung familial farce to the London stage. Translating comedy effectively is a tricky task, especially from Italy to Britain: two countries with distinctive ideas of what's funny and what's not.
The play centres around the impending marriage of George (James Pacileo) and Michael (Federico Moro), two besotted twenty-something Italians. We meet them as they nervously await the arrival of their respective parents. Waiting for the in-laws is a series of dramatic revelations: not just that their children are getting married but that, *gasp* they're gay!
George's parents are brusque, working class conservatives made good. His sturdily built father Ignacio (Tino Orsini) runs a successful tannery and his mother Maria (Yvonne Wickham) is a brassy housewife. Michael's parents tend to the neurotic; his Dad, Agostino (Roberto Benfenati) is a nervous wreck and his mother Amalia (Stefania Montesolaro) is a wistful 60s radical.
Each parent processes their sons' sexuality in different ways. George's burrow deeply into denial, frantically searching for ways to 'prove' he's not really gay and researching methods to convert him back to heterosexuality. Michael's are somewhat more supportive, but quickly discover that the situation shifts the ground under their own marriage. Tossed into the mix is waitress/psychology student/would be actor Laurie (Irene Possetto), a flirty ditz who George's parents see as the ideal decoy to lure their son back to straightness.
For the most part, My Son's Husband proceeds precisely how you'd expect. Farces tend to work in stereotypes, and this play is crammed with them: the gay men want to be fashion designers, the gruff vest n' chain wearing patriarch is a casually homophobic lothario, the mothers bitchily exchange remarks on each other's appearance and so on.
That archetypal nature, combined with an obvious reverence for La Cage Aux Folles and the films of Pedro Almodovar (who's name-dropped constantly) makes for a familiar experience. From the moment we meet these characters we know where they're going and have a pretty damn good idea what the final scene will involve. But, then this is a comedy - the narrative isn't half as important as whether it makes you laugh.
Mark Kermode, a critic who have an awful lot of respect for, has a 'six laugh' rule that I review by; i.e. if a film/show gets at least that amount of chuckles it can't be deemed a complete failure. My Son's Husband easily passes this test, wringing a moderate amount of genuine giggles out of me me. These gags aren't stretching the boundaries of comedy, but they are at least competent.
For example: George has prepared his father for some shocking news, then reveals that he and Michael are to be married. Ignacio reacts with delight, then eagerly asks where the brides are. Upon being told that there's something he doesn't understand about the situation, he runs through an extensive list of what could possibly be wrong with a woman. Eventually he's gently told that the last 30 years have seen a social revolution that's expanded the ways that two people can be joined in marriage. He sits on the sofa, face sagging with realisation. "Oh my god." he exclaims. "She's black."
This is just one of many solidly written and delivered gags sprinkled throughout the show. There's nothing here that's gut-bustingly funny, but this easy to tap into seam of mischievous, easy-to-digest humour runs through the play from beginning to end.
That it's funny is My Son's Husband's saving grace, as dramatically it's riddled with problems. The most glaring one is that George and Michael have absolutely no chemistry with one another. Their love is the fuel that's powering this plot, and though they explain that they're crazy about one another, I never once saw a flash of attraction in their eyes. Indeed, for most of the play Michael is rather unpleasant, making it difficult to see what the far nicer George sees this grumpy sadsack.
I suspect that this lack of chemistry is the result of some rather creaky performances, possibly exacerbated by actors not performing in their first languages. While the older members of the cast (playing the parents) all acquit themselves well, the performances of George, Michael and Laurie are flat and stilted.
I have sympathy for these actors; to act in a second language must be nerve-wracking, but often you can tell that they settle for reciting the lines rather than performing them. Even here they occasionally stumbles: some of the faster paced sections of dialogue are indecipherable.
Despite these flaws I can't bring myself to dislike My Son's Husband. As I stated at the outset it's a friendly, open and welcoming sort of show, one that's eager for the audience to have fun. It's got a good heart, and that goes a long way.
★★★
My Son's Husband is at Theatro Technis until 14th February. Tickets here.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Thursday, November 19, 2015
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Dude Looks Like a Lady is a pleasantly unpretentious experience. Shorn of frippery and glitz, the show is 'merely' four extremely funny comedians ricocheting off one another like they're in a pinball machine. The four, Amanda Stauffer, Juliet Catton, Jessica Ashworth and Leanne Davis, work through just over an hour of absurd sketch comedy, displaying an uncanny skill in skewering gender roles in society.
A highlight comes early on in a sketch that pokes fun at both romantic comedies and creepily romantic "milady *doffs fedora*" types. A woman rides the tube, a man gets on and 'accidentally' drops his papers on the floor. As the woman bends down to help him pick them up he hits play on Wet Wet Wet's Love Is All Around. Their fingers touch. Their eyes lock. It's a classic 'meet-cute'! But this is real-life, where there aren't any Hugh Grants (well, okay, there's one), so his starry-eyed advances become more Lars von Trier than Richard Curtis.
The group have identified a rich seam of comedy and they're determined to mine it for all its worth. I'm not going to list all my favourites - I don't want to spoil the punchlines - the best of which zoom in unexpectedly from leftfield. They broadly share territory with current feminist comedy kingpin Amy Schumer (and draw from the same tradition as Smack the Pony) - highlighting incongruities in male/female relationships, poking fun inwards as well as outwards.
This self deprecating streak results in a pleasingly conspiratorial relationship with the audience. The Etcetera Theatre is a small venue, yet was filled with a good natured, optimistic crowd who were obviously fans of the group. This easy relationship between audience and performer resulted in a lovely communal atmosphere, even extending to the brief moments of audience participation.
Generally the reaction to seeing comedians scan the front row for a target is soul-consuming dread. Everyone averts their eyes as if they're suddenly antelopes in front of a lion. Not here. As they pepper random audience members with questions, there's no cruelty or malice. The guy sitting next to me even gets given a pint of beer for participating! Honestly, I've been to a boatload of comedy gigs and never have I seen the performers supplying the front row with free booze.
But, as with practically all sketch shows, there are a couple of sketches that either run on a bit long or simply don't work that well. A repeating sketch in which a police officer mishears words isn't funny the first time (the gag: her boss says "badge" and she hears "vag") and is even less funnier the third - even with a semi-predictable twist. Less egregiously there's a couple of sketches that inch into self-indulgence and could use a bit of a trim. There's also a scrappiness to the proceedings that, if you're feeling charitable, you can write off as contributing to the personable friendliness of the show, but could just as easily be an indicator that a smidge bit more polish is needed.
Even so, I can't deny I had a good time. If a comedy show makes me chuckle three or four times I'll mark it a success, and Dude Looks Like a Lady wrung countless head-thrown-back guffaws from me. These four have the enviable combination of writing and performance skills, bound up in an irresistibly infectious good-time chemistry.
★★★
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
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"Vampire Hospital Waiting Room" is fun to say out loud: each syllable tripping off the tongue in pleasurably tongue-twisting manner. It's apparently even more fun to sing; the musical opening and closing with a perfectly enunciated, doom-laden repetition of the four surprisingly catchy words. By the end of the night you'll humming the tune as you step out into the night.
Set in an NHS hospital, the (extremely silly) plot revolves around Dr Bloom's (Joe McArdle) quest for vampiredom. A textbook mad scientist, he's become obsessed with being bitten by the 'vampire lord', thus gaining not just the ability to pull of a full-leather outfit, but also immortality. To this end he's been poring over dusty old tomes looking for omens that will herald the lord's arrival.
And he thinks tonight's the night! Unfortunately, threatening to spoil his excitement are a smattering of boring non-vampire patients. A soused rockabilly Scot (Martin MacLennan) s is soon joined by a polite priest (John Rushton) suffering an embarrassing case of the stab wounds, each querying the frazzled 'Sexy Nurse' (Abby Jackson) when, exactly, the doctor will be ready to treat them.
Things come to a head with the arrival of the comatose Artie (Craig Methven). A louche millionaire, he was driving around romancing his bubbly secretary (Imogen Brabant) when a wall came out of nowhere and rendered him insensate. Matters are complicated when his wife (Roz Ford) arrives, sinisterly rattling on about how horrible it would be if he died and all his lovely money would be inherited by her. More pertinently for Dr. Bloom - are those scratches on Artie's wrists a symbol of arcane power? Could this drooling vegetable secretly be his much-longed for Vampire Lord?
It's an understatement to say that the show doesn't take itself particularly seriously. At a svelte hour and fifteen minutes, Vampire Hospital Waiting Room doesn't muck about. Performed as if trying to beat the clock, the show delivers a high-energy shot of slapstick, scenery-chewing overacting, catchy tunes, groan-worthy puns and characters that're so archetypal most of them don't even have names.
The light-hearted breeziness pays off and you quickly understand why this went down so well at the Edinburgh Fringe. The lion's share of the success is down to the cast's comfort in performing with one another. For example, Joe McArdle's doctor goes off on some very strange performative tangents; constantly playing out some facial expression or vocal tic at the expense of whoever he's playing against - yet though his interactions are somewhat sadistic there's a cool camaraderie and trust visible at all times in the rest of the cast.
This loose improvisational style reaches its peak when Dr Bloom is 'testing' the comatose Artie to see if he's really a vampire - if he is then he shouldn't react to anything. As he's tickled with a sweaty rubber glove a smile appears on Craig Methven's face, soon followed by quivering shoulders and tears from his eyes as he does his level best not to react to anything that's happening to him. All too soon the audience is in stitches, his suppressed laughter infectious.
Though that's the high point, Vampire Hospital Waiting Room never truly puts a foot wrong. Sure there's gags that skim by sans-laughter, but the fun mood is maintained from start to finish, helped by a handful of toe-tapping songs - the best being Love is like a Car Crash (though Let's Put the Fun in Funeral isn't far behind). Each of these is built around repeated rhyming lyrical flourishes, most enjoyable when you're all but certain what the next line is going to be - but confounded.
Simply put, Vampire Hospital Waiting Room is a damn good time. The cast are charismatic and possessed of admirable comic timing, the music is jauntily written and the plot lands on just the right side of barmy. Theatrically it's more of an amuse-bouche than a main course, but nonetheless extremely satisfying.
★★★★
Vampire Hospital Waiting Room is at the Arts Theatre until 21 November 2015. Tickets here.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Saturday, October 31, 2015
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I'm going to chalk this down as something I just don't 'get'. The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London was originally written by Spike Milligan as a one-off TV special that would reunite him with fellow Goons Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe. It was never recorded, but later reworked as a Two Ronnies sketch.
Now it returns as a staged 'radio play', adapted by Lee Moone and directed by Dirk Maggs. Sometime in the 90s I was given a cassette copy of Maggs' award winning Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, reworking 'lost' Marx brothers Radio shows for a modern audience. I loved it - a freewheeling comedy improv that seemed to move at a million miles a minute in surreal directions.
The Phantom Raspberry Blower thus comes with a fine comedy pedigree. Even better, the show is performed by a seriously talented cast: David Boyle, Lee Moone, Steve Elias, James Petherick and Jodie Jacobs, all of whom make this incredibly difficult performance task look effortless.
Very loosely plotted, the show follows a comedy Jack-the-Ripper-a-like as he terrorises the aristocracy of Victorian London with a series of wet raspberries. First the Lord Mayor's butler is struck dumb by a particularly fierce "Twffttttt", then an elderly dowager and eventually the Prime Minister. As he works his way inexorably up the social ladder his ultimate target proves to be Queen Victoria, the prospect of her being raspberried possibly bringing down the British Empire.
It is, to say the least, silly. The humour is lies in typically Milligan-esque word games, puns and segues into surreal confusion. Problem is, though it frequently raised a smile it never properly made me laugh. This, I think, is a generational thing. Simply, Spike Milligan's humour just doesn't do anything for me. I've always been reticent about admitting this - most of my favourite comedians mark The Goon Show as the Mozart of British comedy but despite my best efforts to appreciate it, the humour leaves me cold.
Not helping is that the show runs for two hours (including an interval). That's an awful lot of time for a show that relies on you finding the blowing of raspberries downright hilarious. Last night was even a charity night for the Prince's Trust, resulting in a room packed with BBC luminaries, all in a good-natured mood and wanting to enjoy themselves. But soon the laughter became restrained, even the best gags drawing polite titters rather than belly laughs. By the time the second half rocked around there were some newly vacant seats, I suppose figuring they'd showed their support and could go home.
Leaving mid-way through was perhaps a little unfair of them. It's a testament to the skill of the cast that their Herculean efforts to wring every single drop of comedy from the script. It's entirely on their backs that this even remotely succeeds; each throwing every performative trick and comedy beat they can into the pot.
Even this occasionally got a bit dull, at which point I began watching the amazingly talented Jessica Bowles doing live sound effects. It's like a little magic show on stage right, clopping coconut shells together; scrunching up paper; tramping on gravel and playing weird musical instruments.
It's not that The Phantom Raspberry Blower... is particularly unenjoyable - but it's extremely dated comedy that will appeal primarily to an older audiences with fond memories of Spike Milligan and the Goons. If you're a fan then you'll be delighted: this is a slick, personable and friendly production. If not, then, like me, this will leave you cold.
★★
The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town is at the St James Theatre until 1st November, then on tour around the country. Tickets here.
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