Posts Tagged ‘comedy’

Ultra Comedy is an organisation that takes volunteers, spends eight weeks training them up, and then puts on a stand-up comedy gig in which they all perform. The whole process is a fundraiser for Cancer Research UK.

The quality was high. You might not expect that from people who had never done stand-up eight weeks ago, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable event. Some of the jokes did go a little too far, though. And, to be honest, that is not a sentence I ever really thought I would write.

Michelle did brilliantly and got laughs all the way through.

Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps is a book by journalist, Kelly Williams Brown. It is a point-by-point guide to being an adult. Each one gives you advice such as remember to clean your kitchen, be nice to people and stop after the first bottle of wine.

All very actionable stuff.

Like point 6, “stop enjoying things ironically” and just start enjoying them.

Mostly though, it is just a fun book to read. Brown is an amusing writer and while you might not learn much you did not already know (I read it as a 29-year-old, maybe a 21-year-old would learn a lot) you will have a good time reading it.

If this doesn’t convince you, nothing will…

Occasionally, I do actually watch some TV. I was recommended The Inbetweeners by a few people and as the entire series was available on Channel 4’s on demand service All4, we decided to give it a watch. Best of all, with only six episodes to a series, and three series in total, it was small commitment we could get through easily.

It’s pretty funny. It’s not massively high-brow, relying on predictable stereotypes for humour. It is also Peep Show cringey at times. Entertaining nonetheless though. The film was also quite good. There was actual character development and everything.

This is more a reference for me than anyone else; I’ll probably add it to as time goes on. Other suggestions welcome.

Correlation.

The Cloud.

TornadoGuard.

Last month we went to see Alan Davies at Leeds Town Hall. We were quite looking forward to it because he is very toned down on QI, so it should have been a good chance to see him a bit more raw. Elina noted that the mature middle-class audience of QI watchers that surrounded us might be in a bit of a shock.

Unfortunately, it didn’t turn up. Davies has got old and started doing dad jokes. That is jokes about being a dad. I couldn’t really relate to them. He was pretty funny, but I think a lot of the humour was probably lost on me.

I was recommended this book, and by recommend I mean that somebody asked me if I had read it and I decided to change the answer from “no” to “yes”. However, I did not really know what it was about and the description of the book was pretty vague.

“The bestselling book by acclaimed stand-up comedian Stewart Lee revealing the inside workings of his award-winning act.”

There is no gentle introduction either, you are left thinking “what is this?” Lee just jumps straight in to an essay describing his early career and the rise of Alternative Comedy. Not that it is not interesting, I just did not really know what was going on.

Eventually it settles down to a mixture of describing his career and transcripts from his sets, which he has extensively annotated. So extensively that at times you feel the book is almost entirely written in footnotes. Which is good because otherwise I am just paying to read the jokes that I have already paid to see on DVD.

Comedy is clearly a small world. I lost count of the number of household stars that Lee discusses having being on the same bill as, or run into, or been bitter about playing the same club as to then see them rise to arenas. Ricky Gervais in particular, whose style regularly gets confused with Lee’s. This is completely unjust as it was Gervais that was inspired by Lee, and anyway, Lee is fairly open about the fact that he ripped his style of Johnny Vegas.

The book covers three of his sets in detail – Stand-Up Comedian, 90s Comedian and 41st Best Comedian Ever. It was enjoyable to re-read the transcripts for two of them. However, I have not seen 90s Comedian, and so without knowing the timing and intonation, most of the humour is lost. With the other two, you can replay Lee’s voice though the text as you read (or at least you can if you have seen the sets as many times as I have) and thereby preserve the humour.

Stewart Lee’s 2012 show was entitled “Carpet Remnant World”. I’ve just watched it, and I have to say I was disappointed.

In November, Dominic Cavendish wrote an article in The Telegraph about why he walked out of Stewart Lee’s show. His complaint was that Lee spent too much time insulting his audience. He’s right. The first 10 minutes straight of Carpet Remnant World were essentially dedicated to Lee discussing the contempt he holds his audience in.

I’ve seen Stewart Lee live several times and he does make a lot of jokes like that. At first they were funny. Now they’re old, and increasingly offensive. He parrots out the same joke over and over again until people like Cavendish, and indeed even me, someone who considers myself a big Stewart Lee fan, are fed up and bored.

That is not to say there wasn’t a lot of good material. I particularly liked the bit where he said “dog” in a funny voice. However, a lot of his material is feeling increasingly tired.