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: stand-up
Ahir Shah: Ends
Ahir Shah's recent Netflix special, Ends, is both a celebration of British multiculturism and a testimony to the sacrifice of his grandparent's generation, who arrived in the 1960s in search of a better life for their families. Rightly celebrated as a very beautiful act of commemoration - and an unusually positive account of multiculturism, Shah's… Continue reading Ahir Shah: Ends
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
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
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
Mike Birbiglia: orchestrating anxiety
Mike Birbiglia creates masterful endings. It’s not good form to talk about endings, especially in stand up, when an effective ending can be so transformative. With tension such a key component - both at the level of individual jokes and of fully developed sets or specials, with punchlines and closers providing the release (or… Continue reading Mike Birbiglia: orchestrating anxiety
Paul Beatty: Unmitigated Blackness
Paul Beatty is a hugely significant comic writer: one of only a few contemporary novelists whose work is consistently satirical. His most recent novel, The Sellout, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2016, shares DNA with other irreverent, iconoclastic masterpieces like Catch 22 and Slaughterhouse Five. The novel traces the tribulations of his protagonist,… Continue reading Paul Beatty: Unmitigated Blackness
Humour in the Arts 