Comedy Archives - Page 3 of 6 -

March 12, 2018March 11, 2018

BPREVIEW: The Gilded Merkin Burlesque & Cabaret @ The Glee Club (B’ham) 18.03.18

On 18th March, The Gilded Merkin returns to The Glee Club Birmingham for another night of burlesque and cabaret. According to BBC’s John Hess, it will be “a hugely generous dollop of magical sophisticated glamour” – what better way to spend your Sunday evening?

Doors open at The Glee Club from 6pm with last entry at 6:45pm. Minimum age of entry is 18, with tickets priced at £15 – for direct show information, including venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

As usual, The Gilded Merkin is programmed and hosted by Scarlett Daggers – a fiery redhead with ten years experience on the UK burlesque circuit. Scarlett Daggers’ rockabilly flair also makes her a favourite at car shows and tattoo conventions up and down the country, and saw her perform at the F1 Grand Prix Silverstone.

Taking a break from his role as resident host for Tres Tres cabaret in Stafford and La De Da Cabaret in Derby, comedian and vocalist Stage Door Johnny will be joining the line-up at The Gilded Merkin. Known for his wit, charm, and love of musical theatre, Stage Door Johnny promises to have the audience “eating from the palm of his hand – sometimes literally…”

Also on the bill is international artist Miss Betsy Rose, who was ranked the UK’s number one burlesque performer of 2016 by 21st Century Burlesque Magazine. Miss Betsy Rose’s classic look and professional dance background embody the spirit of early burlesque, and have seen her appear in French Vogue, ID, Harpers Bazaar and Italian Playboy.

Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer will also be at The Gilded Merkin, combining jump-up, rap and banjolele to create an art form he’s labeled as ‘chap hop’. His electro-swing tracks have garnered a huge YouTube following and landed Mr.B live sessions with BBC Radio’s Rob Da Bank, Nick Grimshaw, Steve Lamacq and Shaun Keaveny, to name but a few.

Also performing is Lolo Brow, a green haired Londoner who describes herself a neo-burlesque performer, drag queen and lizard lady. Named the Burlesque Awards Performer of the Year 2016, Lolo Brow combines her circus skills and total lack of respect for stage/audience boundaries to shock and delight.

Last but certainly not least is Dave the Bear, who appears online under the username ‘bighairygrowler’; his various acts are said to involve, glitter, latex, mirror balls and his alter ego ‘Maria Beary’. Dave the Bear has previously appeared in all his hirsute glory on the cover of Playbear magazine, as well as showing off his comedy chops on 8 out of 10 Cats and The Xtra Factor.

If there’s not something in The Gilded Merkin‘s showcase of burlesque and cabaret that grabs your attention this Sunday, I don’t know what to say to you… Try church?

The Gilded Merkin presents a showcase of burlesque and cabaret at The Glee Club on Sunday 18^th March – presented by Scarlett Daggers. For direct show information, including venue details and online ticket sales, visit www.glee.co.uk/performer/gilded-merkin-birmingham

For more on The Gilded Merkin, visit www.gildedmerkin.co.uk

For more from The Glee Club venues, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.glee.co.uk

February 20, 2018February 19, 2018

BPREVIEW: Lloyd Griffiths in:Undated @ Glee Club (B’ham) 23.02.18

Words by Ed King / Pic by Karla Gowlett

On Friday 23^rd February, Lloyd Griffiths brings his new one man stand up show, in:Undated, to the Glee Club in Birmingham.

Doors are open at the Arcadian Centre venue from between 8:00pm – 8:15pm, with the show starting at 8:30pm. Latecomers won’t be allowed entry once the doors have closed, so don’t dawdle (not that you should ever try and sneak into a stand up show late… fatal error). Tickets are priced at £10 (standard) and £8 (students) – for direct show information, including venue details and online tickets sales, click here.

Known for many things, from being Jack Whitehall’s tour support act to the presenter of Soccer AM on Sky Sports, Lloyd Griffiths has been honing his stand up skills since around 2014 – including a stint on the BBC 1 Comedy Lounge stage. Griffiths’ new solo stand up show, in:Undated, was debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017, before the comedian’s first nationwide tour brings him to the Glee Club in Birmingham in February 2018.

A fervent Grimsby Town FC supporter and upfront football fanatic, Griffiths also has an impressive roll call as a sports presenter – fronting shows for many major broadcasters, including Sky Sport, BBC, Talksport and Absolute Radio. Griffiths also hosted BBC Three’s Taxi to Training, where he ferried footballers to their training grounds in a single camera shot show filmed from the dashboard. Sounds like a catchy format. Griffiths also recently took over from Helen Chamberlain as the chair of Soccer AM on Sky Sports, one of the more high profile presenter roles for a sports broadcaster. Not bad for a man who cut his TV teeth on Songs of Praise.

But whilst sport can play a significant part in Griffiths material, his in:Undated show goes a little left field for the ‘aspiring goalkeeper’… if you’ll excuse the pun. ‘A show about overcoming the overwhelming’, in:Undated looks to open up the more personal side of this stand up, with material focused on relationships, break ups, the trials and tribulations of dating apps, and comfort eating.

There’s probably a song or two in there as well – as Griffiths is also an accomplished chorister, performing with the choirs of Westminster Abbey, St George’s Chapel and Windsor Castle. Blimey. Is there anything this man can’t do… off the pitch, at least.

Lloyd Griffiths – BBC Comedy Lounge (2014)

Lloyd Griffiths brings his one man stand up show in:Undated to the Glee Club (B’ham) on Friday 23^rd February. For direct show information, including venue details and online ticket sales, visit www.glee.co.uk/performer/lloyd-griffith

For more on Lloyd Griffiths, visit www.lloydgriffith.com

For more from the Glee Club venues, including further event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.glee.co.uk

February 3, 2018

BREVIEW: Katherine Ryan – Glitter Room @ Symphony Hall 02.02.18

Words by Ed King

We filed slowly, languidly into the hall. The auditorium was vast… But not silent, which is an immediate win for a Birmingham crowd.

I love my home city, but it can be a tough cookie for any touring artist – from the Insane Clown Posse to Ani DiFranco, you just can’t be sure when it come to a Birmingham gig. And I have never seen comedy at the Symphony Hall; a huge room, indeed a ‘vast auditorium’, one a friend astutely described as “the 1980’s trying to do the 1950’s”.

But if tonight isn’t sold out, then it’s a damn near close. All I can count are the empty chairs stuck in traffic or cursing an AWOL babysitter. Booking Joe Lycett as support was a bold local move too. So bold it could have even backfired, as Lycett takes to the intimidating plateau that is the Symphony Hall stage (without a orchestra on it at least) and makes it as cosy as your living room. Cosier, in fact, like the living room of a good friend but one who won’t expect you to clean up afterwards. Or a total stranger’s when you’ve drunk too much to care.

Taking us to the interval and in some case to our seats, as with the unlucky couple that arrive a little late (once the show had started, once the stand up comedy show had started, once the stand up comedy show had started in front of thousands of people that can see you’re in the wrong aisle) Lycett confidently segues from jokes of civic humour to the best use for an Amazon Alexa. Extreme, funny, and extremely funny, the now Kings Heathen is about to embark on his I’m About to Lose Control and I think Joe Lycett (nice) tour, kicking off the day before Valentines. Definitely one to watch out for, and then watch. If you can. It’s pretty much sold out too.

Sauntering onto the big and empty Symphony Hall stage, “it’s a long walk…”, Katherine Ryan looks resplendent in pink silk (I think) with red frills. Or her Vagina Trousers, as we are quickly informed. So there’s an image that will never leave my mind. Assured, tempered by a tour that’s been running since September, and all the qualities that a stand up Faust would be picking his scabs to sign, seal and deliver, Ryan opens with jokes about relationships, the ending of relationships, and moving six thousand miles away with your fingers crossed – an oddly narcissistic approach to putting your emotional cards on the table. Immediately engaging, Ryan turns what could have been trite into fresh and personal material, inviting us into walk though the weird worlds we all inhabit (even if some of us aren’t totally aware of our terrain). Honest, the fun side of frustrated, and cut to perfection; I will never look at a dolphin in quite the same way again.

From jibes about her “ineffectual butler” daughter, be it stalking Anna Kendrick or learning the difference between “day wine and night wine”, to an accentuated recount of when her family came over from the “trashy part” of Canada to see her small London freehold, Ryan has a firm grip on her delivery. Its gut wrenching; at one point I honestly feel the cartilage between my ribs ask me to stop. But by the time my favourite line of the night is uttered, namely that the Frank Sinatra standard ‘My Way’ is the “anthem of a cunt”, it’s clear there is to be little respite. And I will love that sentence until the day that I die.

But Ryan’s wrath is anything than just pure self deprecation, as everyone from her school gate peers – the bake sale obsessed Julie (who I swear is a more fertile version of my step mother) to the Lycra obsessed husband who would get “hate fucked” back in his box, get an astute poke in the ribs. And if you’ve ever spent “two Christmases” traversing a bitter and empty motorway…

Celebrity culture is also in range, as public domain miscreants – from R Kelly to the misogynists of musical theatre – receive a taste of the lash. But don’t worry, an escape to any would be sexual predator is offered; just “don’t fuck vulnerable women”, as the chant that never was (but should have been) rings around the back rows of the West End.

There is even a little time for some proxy president poking, filtered through the plight of “the world’s most unlucky gold digger” Melania Trump. And despite the clear attack at the abject horror that currently sits in The White House, this once again over used subject is the conduit for another piece of acerbic genius – namely that the maligned First Lady is only “one line of coke and an aggressive hand job” away from inheritance and freedom. We can but hope. Or perhaps even help, to a point. I know a guy with some cracking Colombian flake…

Katherine Ryan’s Glitter Room is on tour across the UK until the 24^th March 2018. For more on Katherine Ryan, including full tour dates and online ticket sales, visit www.katherineryan.co.uk

For more on Joe Lycett, visit www.joelycettcomedy.co.uk

For more from Live Nation UK, including further event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.livenation.co.uk

For more from both the Symphony and Town Halls, including further event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.thsh.co.uk

February 1, 2018February 2, 2018

ED’S PICK: February 2018

Words by Ed King

The shortest month of the year is here. Luckily it’s also the turning point, as life starts to push up through the thaw and Percy Thrower can start planning his planters. OK, bad example, but there’s a joke about daisies in the somewhere.

But luckily for us mortal coilers, the venues and promoters of this city are still packing a pretty heavy punch with February’s event calendar. If there truly is no rest for the wicked, then it seem incongruous that anyone got Christmas presents this year.

Comedy starts strong with the ‘queen of the acerbic broad smile’, or Katherine Ryan as she’s known in other publications, bringing her Glitter Room tour to the Symphony Hall (2^nd Feb) – a week before the Machynlleth Comedy Festival Showcase (9^th Feb) comes to mac with Joe Lycett, Tom Parry, Mike Bubbins, Rachel Parris and Danny Clives. Then it’s back to the Glee Club for a little end of the month self help, as Lloyd Griffiths (23^rd Feb) walks us through what it’s like to feel in:Undated in ‘a show about overcoming the overwhelming.’ I call them mornings, but we’ll see what he brings to the table.

Hurst Street is the home of dance this month, with Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella coming to the Hippodrome (6^th – 10^th Feb) whilst round the corner DanceXchange and Mark Bruce Company present a reworking of Macbeth (8^th-9^th Feb). And no doubt making St Valentine’s Day less of a massacre for many in this city, see what I did there, Birmingham Royal Ballet present The Sleeping Beauty back at the Hippodrome (13^th – 24^th Feb).

Music has everyone from the soon to be great to the already good coming through the city, kicking off with a cross city battle between Peach Club at The Sunflower Lounge (6^th Feb) and While She Sleeps at the O2 Institute (6^th Feb). A week later we have Iron & Wine at Symphony Hall (13^th Feb), followed by Bedford’s alt rockers Don Bronco at the O2 Academy (15^th Feb) as Dermot Kennedy plays the O2 Institute (15^th Feb). A day later there’s Mondo Royale spicing it up at the Actress & Bishop (16^th Feb) bringing a few different strands of your music rainbow across our city. In the days after that, we see Cabbage at the Castle & Falcon (17^th Feb), one not to be missed, The Ataris at The Asylum (17th Feb), Irit at the Glee Club (19^th Feb), Laura Misch at the Hare & Hounds (20^th Feb), Big Cat at the Indie Lounge in Selly Oak (23^rd Feb) and Puma Blue at The Sunflower Lounge (24^th Feb).

All the ‘big gigs’ this month are at the Genting Arena, in the shape of Imagine Dragons (24^th Feb) and the man himself, or one of them at least, Morrissey (27^th Feb). But there’s a few home grown releases this month worth saving your sheckles for too, as Amit Datani releases his debut solo album – Santiago (17^th Feb) and Table Scraps send another fuzz monster into the world with their latest long player – Autonomy (23^rd). Watch out for March’s listings for showcase gigs from both.

Exhibitions come from a multitude of angles this month, with the two blips on our radar being Factory Warhol at The Sunflower Lounge (10^th Feb) and The Dekkan Trap from Sahej Rahal in mac’s First Floor Gallery (17^th Feb) – with a few ancillary events to introduce both the artist and exhibition.

Some suitable love story based theatre starts treading the boards in this most Hallmark of months, with Penguins (1^st –10^th Feb) and Brief Encounter (2^nd– 17^th Feb) coming to the Birmingham REP, as The Last Five Years get played out at The Old Joint Stock (14^th – 18^th Feb). Then it’s the arguably less seductive A History of Heavy Metal with Andrew O’Neill & Band in mac’s Theatre (18^th Feb), before the award winning Mental has a three day at The Old Joint Stock (21^st – 23^rd Feb) and Terence Rattigan’s The Windslow Boy begins it’s run at REP (21^st Feb – 3^rd Mar). And for one night only each, LEFTY SCUM: Josie Long, Jonny & The Baptists and Grace Petrie present a mix bag of ‘Music! Comedy! Revolutionary socialism’ again in mac’s Theatre (27^th Feb) whilst back at The Old Joint Stock there is single An Act of Kindness (28^th Feb) to round off the month. But don’t worry, it’ll be back in March.

So, enough to keep you lovebirds busy this month – or to distract the kings and queens of singledom on that depressing light letter box day. But whether you face this world alone or together there’s always Fight Club for £1 at The Mockingbird Kitchen & Cinema (12^th Feb). Cheaper than a card, at least.

For more on any of the events listed here, click on the highlighted hyperlink. Ed King is Editor-in-Chief of Review Publishing, which issues both the Birmingham Review and Birmingham Preview.

January 30, 2018

BREVIEW: Fern Brady – Suffer, Fools! @ Glee Club (B’ham) 29.01.18

Words by Helen Knott

Fern Brady was meant to perform at the Glee Club’s Studio on Friday night rather than today, a Monday, but a date mix up meant that she was in Sweden instead. A Friday night gig would have likely made for a larger audience, with the overspill of people too late to get into the main room plumping up the numbers. But, on the positive side, tonight’s good natured crowd is here specifically to see Brady. They are attentive and they get it.

Brady’s show is called Suffer, Fools! and it takes us through a number of dramatic episodes in her life, from experiences in dead end jobs (serving breakfast to paedophiles and murderers, working as a stripper) to an abusive relationship that culminated with an attempt on her life. Heavy topics for a comedy show perhaps, but Brady keeps things light and fast-moving, using these life events as a backbone to talk around a number of contemporary issues.

The lack of gay marriage and abortion in Northern Ireland, for instance. In Brady’s eyes: “All homophobes are gay. It’s just a waiting game.” She suggests it’s not gay people ruining the definition of traditional marriage – straight people do it all the time. She backs this up with examples, like her father’s second marriage to “Julie from Milton Keynes” and tall women marrying short men (“I think it’s against nature”). Brady cleverly parrots the language around homophobia when defending her own relationship with an Irish guy who is shorter than herself: “We look stupid together… but love is love.”

Brady mentions having to amend some of her jokes before the BBC will broadcast them, in particular one about DUP leader Arlene Phillips. She can go a little close to the mark, but always with the aim of making an important point, as is the case with her material about sexual harassment. Brady claims to have been complaining about being sexually harassed on the street for the past five years, but was taken as seriously as, “ghosts or homeopathy”. How times have changed. She calls out celebrities such as Joanna Lumley, Angela Lansbury and Liam Neeson for undermining the seriousness of the accusations against Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Louis CK. Brady’s understated delivery is largely quiet and deliberate, so when she does raise her voice to make an indignant point it has plenty of impact.

The final section of Suffer, Fools! looks at two of Brady’s dysfunctional past relationships. A story about a bad break-up with a posh boy at university explores issues of class (“I don’t fuck outside my class”) and eating disorders. It ends violently, but not as violently as an abusive relationship in her twenties where her boyfriend attempts to smother her with a pillow. It was all a long time ago and Brady refrains from making any profound points about what happened, even if she jokes that this would get her an extra star in a Guardian review.

It all leads up to a very silly, but funny final scene that pulls together a number of jokes from the show. It’s a fitting climax to a very well thought-out hour of comedy in which Brady doesn’t shy away from the darker side of life and is brutal in her pursuit of a zippy punchline. This, along with her low-key delivery, sets her apart from other new comics on the block. I hope that the BBC doesn’t polish too much of the weirdness out of her.

For more on Fern Brady, visit www.fernbrady.co.uk

For more from the Glee Club venues, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.glee.co.uk