The All-Star Stand Up Tour
As Stewart Lee has frequently noted, live comedy can be a tough proposition for audiences: you’re asking someone to go to the expense and logistical hassle of organising an evening out (and possibly hiring a babysitter) in the hope they’ll have a laugh. The organisers of this tour have gone some way to offset that uncertainty, with a wildly eclectic bill that should include something for everyone. Pete Firman is a goth-tinged conjuror with a penchant for macabre physical humour; Jarred Christmas is an energetic Kiwi observationalist; and Gary Delaney is a punmaster par excellence in the tradition of Tim Vine or Milton Jones. Furthermore, Sean Hughes – the Channel 4 pinup of the early 90s, now making unexpectedly great material about the morbidities of middle age – could justify the ticket price on his own. As a quartet, they make an altogether more consistent offering than you’ll get from most comedy clubs, while ensuring a greatest-hits approach from the comics.
What Has The News Ever Done For Me? London
UK TV commissioners occasionally bemoan the lack of an equivalent to topical US comedies such as Last Week Tonight or The Daily Show, while steadfastly refusing comics the necessary budgets or editorial licence to make one. So, while onscreen satire is limited to Have I Got News For You or Mock The Week, performers who want to go a little further must do their thing via podcasts and stage shows. Gráinne Maguire’s What Has The News Ever Done For Me? is an example of the latter. It’s a panel game-slash-talkshow where comedians champion the week’s big news stories, before the audience decide which is the most important. Although it mixes showbiz flimflam with the big political stories, Maguire herself has strong topical chops: as well as performing a string of left-leaning standup shows, she has recently appeared on Panorama and Question Time in support of Jeremy Corbyn.
Elliot Steel, On tour
The grotesquely young Elliot Steel is at that formative stage of his career when he’s going to have to put up with pieces like this introducing him by saying he’s the son of veteran leftie standup Mark. But the merits of Steel the Younger are strong enough to get his old man worrying that one day he’ll find himself billed as “father of Elliot”. Croydon’s been the subject of it’s fair share of gags from all sorts of performers, but Steel Jr makes it a fleshed-out comic universe via unvarnished and brilliantly detailed snapshots of adolescent life. He mines great gags out of the overspill town’s oddball inhabitants, aggressive streets and toilet nightclubs, and puts himself at the centre of it all, an outwardly confident but secretly awkward 19-year-old who’s never quite able to pull off the grown-up attitudes he aspires to.
