Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

It’s been a while since I have had a night out at a comedy gig, but now I am wondering why I left it so long.  Stewart Lee in Basingstoke has so many incongruencies it’s difficult to know where to start.  The show itself is a masterclass in comedy, as you would expect from someone who has been in the game since the 1980s.  Demonstrating a range of different comedy styles from the lefty liberal stuff to the right wing offensive ‘free speech’ types like Ricky Gervais and Dave Chapelle, critiquing them as he presents them, to ask the question what is comedy today?    Yes it’s high concept but it’s also really really funny and I laughed a lot.  I don’t want to give anything away but the mix of intellectual waffle undercut with the basest of laughs is just perfection.  I think this tour is ending soon and will probably be on a streaming service nearby.  The age of the audience worried me a bit though - mainly over 40's with a smattering of young'uns....

Hacks - last month I raved about this show but I hadn’t quite finished the final episodes.  Update: I finished it and I love it even more now.  It’s unusual for me to cry and laugh at the same time at a comedy but I did for this one.  It rounded off everyone’s stories so beautifully.  A tiny bit sentimental but with enough humour to cut through it.  I recommend this to the highest degree. (series, streaming on AppleTV) Youth - the latest comedy from Sharon Horgan.  This is a dramedy, touching on all of the sorts of issues that middle aged women have to deal with which should be right up my street but I don't know why, it didn't really hit the spot for me. I found the critique of the publishing industry a bit annoying, not because it isn't funny or accurate, but it felt a bit to me as if it was in-jokes for the cool crowd.  Maybe I was just feeling grumpy but The Guardian absolutely loved it, and my multiple disagreements with their critics departmen...

  Another week, another Heated Rivalry themed outing, this time to see the other parody musical about the show.  This one is of US heritage and it does make something of a difference.   This time the framing device is a trio of 'Susans',  basically wine moms, who sing about having some time to themselves once they have got their kids and husbands settled with other stuff.   This production is firmly rooted in musical theatre, with original songs which make the sort of sly references that musical theatre buffs will get.  Full disclosure, I am not a musical theatre buff, so I could spot that a reference was being made but rarely understood.  They are good solid songs, and the lyrics are a perfect mix of honouring and taking the piss out of the source.  Some of the songs have been recorded by the US cast, and they are all great. In this version, we get a few more characters which was good to see, and the important plot beats were all hit ve...

I got a returned ticket to see this in the almost sold out run for this play with Anne-Marie Duff doing her stuff as Julie, the woman who gets pushed just a bit too far. Anne-Marie Duff doing her stuff is both the strength and the weakness of this production.  Not only is she playing yet another middle aged woman pushed past her breaking point, but the situation she finds herself in feels so familiar it made me feel tired even if it’s a little unlikely in some of the detail.  This is designed to show what women, older women in particular,  are confronted with everyday, and it does that very well.  The little disrespects and rudeness that wouldn’t be directed towards a man, the structures and systems that mean that women start off with a disadvantage, and then men who know their power and how to use it.  Alongside the general crap that women have to deal with, this also highlights that middle aged and older women become invisible not just to men, but sometimes to...

  An abrupt change of tone for this tiny, fun production, sold out and just about to finish its run at The Other Palace Theatre.  Anyone who has been following my posts for the past few months will know that I have fallen in love with the Heated Rivalry tv show currently streaming on Sky/Nowtv in the UK.  The tv show diverts us from its classy credentials with the amount of sexiness, but there is actually a much more serious work of highest quality film making and performance hiding just under the surface.   This theatre production is what it says on the tin - a panto style parody of the show, taking the key plot points and characters but squeezing every last laugh it can out of the material.  I laughed all the way through, so much that my face really did ache a lot!  This is also highly classy in its way though, with every element thought through and with a solid cast of four, including Diana Vickers with her amazing voice doing a lot of heavy lifting...

This play starts with what initally appears to be a game of chance as Cate Blanchett or Nina Hoss get to choose on the flip of a coin which of them will play Electra/Elisabeth.  On the night I attended, Nina Hoss was Electra and Cate Blanchett was Clytemnestra/Alma.  I really enjoyed the first half,  which takes us through a mother/daughter battle, as Electra tries to understand the horrendous thing her mother has done.  On a bare stage, with just steps, the performances of both leads were excellent , and I really  enjoyed the interplay between the two leads.  Violent and vibrant, this had me on the edge of my seat, and not just because I had someone with a big head in front of me as always.  There's no interval, so we get a few minutes of visible set change and character resets as the two leads transform into their roles  for Persona, in the second half of the play, something, which now I think about it, makes a lot of sense as we are going to di...

 Josh O'Connor on the London stage at the Almeida theatre was never going to disappoint, so I bought our tickets on the first morning that membership booking opened, and I’m glad I did as it has been resolutely sold out for ages.  With the addition of Hayley Squires and Daniel Mays in the central cast it looked as though we were in for a treat.  Clifford Odet's play, written in 1937, is a bit of a period piece, set during the depression as Joe Bonaparte decides to leave behind his impoverished life as a violinist in New York, and instead become a prize fighter.  Nowadays the short cut would presumably be as a social media influencer.  Daniel Mays is Tom, playing to type as Joe's seedy and initially unwilling but increasingly more enthusiastic promoter. Hayley Squires plays Lorna Moon, Tom's mistress, wielded as a weapon to get Joe onside, but eventually, and fairly obviously, becoming part of a love triangle.  The production has more furniture and tradition...