Arnie, Dolph and me: Musclebound, the show working out pleasure, pain and bodybuilding

Growing up, Rosy Carrick was fascinated by Schwarzenegger, Lundgren and other shredded 80s screen stars. Now she is exploring what they helped her realise about her sex lifeIs there a gap between our private desires and the ones we are brave enough to …

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Jamali Maddix review – the somewhat funny side of sex addiction

Pleasance, EdinburghMaddix is a fluent, playful comic, but the window opened here on his conflicted psyche feels unresolved – for him as much as his audience‘I needed to say it more than you needed to hear it,” says Jamali Maddix towards the end of Kin…

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I made a name for myself with ‘sex-positive’ comedy. Then I was raped on a night out. Would my openness be used against me?

I’ve never held back when it comes to talking about sex. But after an attack while on holiday in Las Vegas, going to the police didn’t feel like an optionLast November, after a string of relationships with men had gone wrong, I decided to go to Los Ang…

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Jacqueline Novak review – audaciously funny trolling of the penis

Soho theatre, LondonThe standup ruthlessly dismantles the machismo around the act of fellatio while telling her own cocksure journey through oral sex‘Do I overreach?”, asks Jacqueline Novak. Well, yes – no show ever overreached more, which is what make…

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Jacqueline Novak: ‘My show is not a takedown of the penis’

Can you do a whole standup set about blowjobs? The New York comedian thinks so, but don’t assume her show is a feminist rallying cry “Even I would be irritated hearing about this show if I wasn’t me,” admits Jacqueline Novak, who is attempting to accur…

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Nate: A One Man Show review – outrageous and electrifying comedy

Natalie Palamides’s drag king show remains both raucous and subtle, as it explores grey areas around consentThere can be sacrifices when live comedy transfers to TV – and I expected them with Natalie Palamides’ hot-button anarcho-clown show Nate. But s…

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Nate: A One Man Show review – outrageous and electrifying comedy

Natalie Palamides’s drag king show remains both raucous and subtle, as it explores grey areas around consentThere can be sacrifices when live comedy transfers to TV – and I expected them with Natalie Palamides’ hot-button anarcho-clown show Nate. But s…

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From first love to unfollowing – culture that sums up romance in 2020

A book redefining marriage, a riotous show about dating, the secret meanings of breakup songs and a sex show to put your back out … ahead of Valentine’s Day, our critics pick works that sum up passion in our turbulent timesFrom Adam and Eve in the book…

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Tom Rosenthal: Manhood review – dick jokes, demons and diatribes

Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe standup, who was circumcised as an infant, gets het up in a show where the polemic overshadows the comedyDick jokes are as old as comedy, but few – Richard Herring with docu-comedy Talking Cock excepted – dedicate whol…

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‘Whenever you have sex, it’s on your mind’: Tom Rosenthal on turning circumcision into comedy

The procedure left the comedian with sexual anxiety – and a tell-all show at the Edinburgh festivalJournalistic etiquette decrees that any delicate questions are usually saved until near the end of an interview. That doesn’t apply, however, when you ar…

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