Points of view: theatre, comedy and news
Considering that Amelia Hamilton is the UK’s first rap comic, we expect a certain level of ingenuity as we step into the venue. Hamilton exceeds our expectations a hundredfold. With catchy beats, genuinely unexpected and agile lyrical deviations and turns, Hamilton’s Forget Me Not is an unforgettable comedy-rap remix of non-stop hits, both comedic and musical.
I left Josie Long’s Now Is The Time Of Monsters shell-shocked and with the understanding that I have greatly underestimated just how stand-up can make me feel. It’s such a powerful hour full of off-beat, effortless and deeply funny comedy, that speaks to something bigger and leaves us with a tonne of questions to reflect on to the point where we feel everything that Long says in the depths of our souls.
Improv is difficult and subjective, more so than other genre. A performer really has to be at the top of their game in order to be even just halfway decent at improv, because there’s no one tool that they can rely on to move a scene forward. The quality of, improv mostly swings between two extremes, poor and fantastic. Holy Shit Improv can be safely considered the latter.
Starting as an off-beat and innocent comedy show that could be mistaken for stand-up, Rhys Darby’s The Legend Returns quickly devolves into unmitigated and hilarious chaos, covering everything from the feud between Australia and New Zealand to the next Olympics and the dangers of AI.
In Awkward Productions’ Gwyneth Goes Skiing, Linus Karp and Joseph Martin very much live up to the tenor set by the infamous trial on which this show is based on. What we see over the course of this production is an amalgamation of all the comedy and storytelling techniques that they have been refining over... Continue Reading →
If there is one expectation and truth about Rhys Nicholson’s comedy shows, is that whatever happens in the room, whatever jokes are told, it will always be a memorable experience, and Big Huge Party Congratulations is no different.
They say that there’s no genius without a touch of madness and Alexander Bennett’s Emotional Daredevil has both in barrels.
Improv is always a huge risk to go to as an audience member, just because there’s such a wild and fluctuating difference in quality that can occur. That being said, Holy Shit Improv is pretty much as safe a bet as you can make with this genre. I have never laughed as hard or for as long as I did during this show, there’s just no way to stop laughing at what occurs onstage.
MC Hammersmith’s The MC Stands for Middle Class is just about as good as it gets in terms of improvisation, music and comedy. It’s difficult to go back to listening just rap after this show, because what MC Hammersmith does is a lot more impressive than anything out there. Even Hamilton appears less ground-breaking after seeing this show.
Xhloe and Natasha have achieved a kind of legendary status; they are remarkable performers and writers who create such curious and dynamic storylines and relationships within their theatre pieces, combining elements of clowning, physical theater in order to explore broader themes, building and improving on the strength of their previous shows. Their latest work A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God (Whoever Reads This First) is no different, as with this show they break their own record of imaginative storytelling yet again.
Pepper & Salt 