Queen Elizabeth Hall, LondonThe US comic has charisma and craft but reinforces gender stereotypes with cartoonish vigour in a set that falls flatIliza Shlesinger raised hackles last summer when she criticised other female comics for their “low-hanging fruit” material. It is hard not to r...
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Royal Festival Hall, LondonThe laidback raconteur gets political and personal with riffs on everything from the US vice-president to PG Tips‘I don’t believe people’s joy,” says Marc Maron. It’s just a word we give, he says, to momentary distractions from self-hate. He g...
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Leicester Square theatre, LondonThe south Londoner’s hit character sketches transfer smoothly from social media to the comedy club in this crowd-pleasing showIt’s been a big year for south London comic Mo Gilligan. Twelve months ago, he was selling jeans. Now, he’s playing the Albe...
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Leicester Square theatre, LondonThe south Londoner’s hit character sketches transfer smoothly from social media to the comedy club in this crowd-pleasing showIt’s been a big year for south London comic Mo Gilligan. Twelve months ago, he was selling jeans. Now, he’s playing the Albe...
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Just a month before their first child is due, the standup couple are doing a show together – seeking the audience’s parenting tips“It’s mad,” says Josie Long, “but it feels like the right thing to do.” Braving the blustery weather at a pavement cafe near the...
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The standup and actor spills the beans on the things that make her laugh the most, from Wanda Sykes to magic mushroomsWhite People Are Looking – Wanda Sykes’s bit on being black after Obama got in – is pretty transcendental. Continue reading......
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Comedy rapper Lil Dicky has reached No 1, adding to successes such as Big Shaq and the Lonely Island. But as Honey G’s example shows, doing funny rhymes right takes sophistication‘He’s not like a ‘rapper’ rapper,” the guy in the restaurant explains to his unimpres...
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Soho theatre, LondonAllen’s amiable routines about gay and working-class stereotyping foreground his abundant skills as a raconteurIf Tom Allen weren’t already hosting a primetime Saturday night TV show, you’d have to invent one for him. Thirteen years a standup, the Bromley man de...
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Soho theatre, LondonAllen’s amiable routines about gay and working-class stereotyping foreground his abundant skills as a raconteurIf Tom Allen weren’t already hosting a primetime Saturday night TV show, you’d have to invent one for him. Thirteen years a standup, the Bromley man de...
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As Maxine Peake takes the mic to play a club comic in Funny Cow, here are five movies that capture the lacerating, soul-baring world of live comedyThere’s something so intimate, exposing and ruthless about their artform that standups make perfect symbols for the battle we all wage to assert ou...
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