Comedy
Have today’s TV dramatists completely given up on plausibility?
In advance, Ludwig sounded as if it was aimed squarely at the Inspector Morse market. Set among spires of impeccable…
Sick, cynical and irresistible: Netflix’s Kaos reviewed
Kaos is a new Netflix gods-and-monsters black-comedy blockbuster that will scorch your screen and fry your brain like a thunderbolt…
Rather in the lurch: Small Bomb at Dimperley, by Lissa Evans, reviewed
In 1945, a dilapidated Tudor manor risks being demolished – unless an impoverished evacuee with a gift for organisation can galvanise its despairing owner
The cast mistake screaming for comedy: Cockfosters, at Turbine Theatre, reviewed
The Turbine Theatre is a newish venue beneath the railway arches of Grosvenor Bridge in Battersea. The comfy auditorium is…
This Edinburgh Fringe comedian is headed for stardom
Dr Phil Hammond is a hilarious and wildly successful comedian whose career is built on the ruins of the NHS.…
Can video games be funny?
Grade: B+ Games can be exciting, puzzling, scary, competitive and – occasionally – moving. Can they be funny? Not often.…
Edinburgh has turned into a therapy session
Therapy seems to be the defining theme of this year’s Edinburgh festival. Many performers are saddled with personal demons or…
No laughing matter: The Material, by Camille Bordas, reviewed
A graduate course at the University of Chicago teaches stand-up to a group of aspiring young comedians. But the more you analyse humour, the less funny it becomes
Do men and women need different podcasts?
Do men and women need different podcasts? The notion goes against the unisex, every-sex, what-is-sex-anyway culture we have come to…
Utterly bog-standard: BBC2’s The Turkish Detective reviewed
A partly subtitled show set in Istanbul might sound like a brave departure for a BBC Sunday night crime drama.…
‘I want every production I do to be the funniest’: an interview with Cal McCrystal
There are certain things that you don’t expect at the opera. Laughter, for example. Proper laughter, that is; not the…
An exclusive look at Graham Linehan’s Father Ted musical
The tree-lined streets of Rotherhithe are an odd place to unveil a West End musical. But this is a suitably…
Fawlty Towers – The Play is the best museum piece you’ll ever see
Fawlty Towers at the Apollo may be the best museum piece you’ll ever see. A full-length play has been carved…
Player Kings proves that Shakespeare can be funny
Play-goers, beware. Director Robert Icke is back in town, and that means a turgid four-hour revival of a heavyweight classic…
A magnificent set of dentures still leaves little to smile about
After undergoing prolonged cosmetic dentistry, 50-year-old John Patrick Higgins reluctantly acknowledges that he’ll never be the stylish man about town of his dreams
Progressives vs. bigots: How I Won a Nobel Prize, by Julius Taranto, reviewed
When a quantum physicist and her partner reluctantly move to a university staffed by cancelled luminaries the scene is set for a darkly comic clash of ideologies
No laughing matter: accusations of transphobia wrecked Graham Linehan’s life
The comedian found himself out of work and out of his marriage when he challenged the transgender ideology that to be a man or women is about choosing an identity
‘Comedy is much more important than I thought’: John Cleese on the press, his new talk show and the power of Fawlty Towers
John Cleese enjoys tough questions. He’s currently touring America with An Evening with the Late John Cleese, and a substantial…
What a joke
The award for the funniest joke at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe was won by Lorna Rose Treen, with this: ‘I…
‘I disliked him intensely’: Richard Lewis on first meeting Larry David
Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Richard Lewis talks to Ben Lazarus about addiction, his Parkinson’s diagnosis – and his friendship with Larry David
Trump, Diogenes, the Mitfords and Malaysian comedy: Edinburgh Fringe round-up
The Mitfords is a superb one-woman show by Emma Wilkinson Wright who focuses her attention on Unity, Diana and Jessica.…
Forgettable stuff: The Crown Jewels, at the Garrick, reviewed
In the 1990s, the BBC had a popular flat-share comedy, Men Behaving Badly, about a pair of giggling bachelors who…
