Luke McQueen's return to the Fringe is an audacious bonfire of the vanities - both his own and the comedy ecosystem more generally; the gatekeepers, the chummy podcasts, the expensive clowning courses. Directed by Jordan Brookes, the show shares clear DNA with Brookes's own solo work, playing with what's real and what's not, and interrogating… Continue reading Comedian’s Comedian
Category: comedians
Taskmaster
A widely beloved cultural institution, and now on its 19th season, we might have become inured to the ways in which Taskmaster quietly subverts precedent. Re-inventing both the double-act and the panel-show, as well as the evaluative model so central to light entertainment (Britain's Got Talent, Project Runway, American Idol), the show deserves on-going celebration.… Continue reading Taskmaster
Female masculinity
'Tiny bisexual women are realising masculinity doesn't have to be attached to men', Chloe Petts observes in a sly aside, and as a bit of a geezer, she's clearly delighted. And it's not just the tiny bisexual women: due in part to the work of stand-ups like Petts, there's an increasingly widespread awareness of the… Continue reading Female masculinity
Strategic vulnerability
A degree of vulnerability is central to stand-up, and integral to the expectation of candid revelation. It's a vexing concept from a feminist perspective, however, because of its association 'both with femininity and with weakness and dependency' (Gilson, 2016, 71). In stand-up, vulnerability is perhaps most apparent in self-deprecation or self-satire, an aspect of comic… Continue reading Strategic vulnerability
Dick jokes
The dick joke retains its dominant conceptual status, but it’s no longer the straightforward staple it once was. #MeToo, concerns about ‘toxic masculinity’ and social justice campaigns which prioritise minority groups while challenging the centrality of the white, male perspective are all working to complicate the conventional forms of sexually explicit material. However, these new… Continue reading Dick jokes
Sex comedy
‘Sex comedy’ is a rather nebulous classification; films like American Pie (1999), and much of Judd Apatow’s oeuvre (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Superbad) fit the bill, with ancient Greek and Restoration comedies and the films of Doris Day and Rock Hudson providing a lineage for comedies that revolve around sex. It’s a genre that can be… Continue reading Sex comedy
Berlant and Early: Intellectual vaudeville
It feels a little superfluous analysing Kate Berlant and John Early’s work when the commentary is largely built in; to point out that they revisit certain preoccupations, like social performance and competition, for example, feels somewhat redundant when the revisiting is itself a theme of the work. That interest in refining an idea or an… Continue reading Berlant and Early: Intellectual vaudeville
Leo Reich: Literally, Who Cares
Leo Reich’s debut Fringe show is dazzling. A portrait of rabid Gen Z narcissism that is brilliantly funny, and despite the artfully superficial persona, threaded through with melancholy and rage; emotion which is ironic and also not. Reich is incisive about the conditions that have generated contemporary pathologies - the warping effects of technology for… Continue reading Leo Reich: Literally, Who Cares
Jerk
The BBC 3 sitcom Jerk, stars Tim Renkow as an anti-hero who exploits his cerebral palsy to get away with bad behaviour. Widely acknowledged to be ground-breaking in its representation of disability, the series is a radical departure from the narrative conventions that situate disabled characters as either victim or saint. With a clear kinship… Continue reading Jerk
Catherine Cohen: the twist?… she’s gorgeous
‘The Twist...? She’s Gorgeous’, Catherine Cohen’s recent Netflix special, sees her concoct a flamboyant spectacle of feminine narcissism, in a show characterised by a rather perfect tension between self-regard and self-deprecation, conceit and vulnerability, play and pain. Part of what’s dazzling about Cohen’s performance is the sheer speed and precision with which she moves through… Continue reading Catherine Cohen: the twist?… she’s gorgeous
Humour in the Arts 