Extraordinary Alien. Review by Julia Pascal. Does a stand-up need to have a narrative or does a discursive monologue, laced with self-deprecation, stand up? Debra Tammer’s Extraordinary Alien (on its way to the Edinburgh Festival) promises much with its marketing image.
comedy
How to Make a Mess. Review by Barbara Lewis. Not the Bible, not “Winnie the Pooh” not even Harry Potter – “How to Eat” was the book the loving father of Anna (played by Natasha Karp) gave to his daughter to learn to read and as a life manual.
As You Like It. Review by Barbara Lewis. The line “ripeness is all” from Shakespeare’s tragedy of old age Lear could easily be the motto of the RSC’s latest joyful version of one of his most youthful comedies of love.
The Mikado, Wilton’s Music Hall. Review by Barbara Lewis. In 1885, when the Mikado began delighting audiences, it was expedient to set the splendidly silly light opera in Japan to give it maximum freedom to satirise British institutions. Director Sasha Regan travels in time not space to send up a 1950s public school camping trip, in its way as exotic as imperial Japan.
As You Like It. Review by Barbara Lewis. Shakespeare famously was for all time, and yet this version of As You Like It feels uniquely relevant to our age.
Scottish stand-up comedian Daniel Sloss is a centurion by his own admission – in other words, he has slept with at least 100 women. One triggered the dark outpouring Jigsaw, which became a Netflix sensation, notorious for causing more than 300 divorces, 350 cancelled engagements and 120,000 breakups – so far.
For those suffering withdrawal symptoms, Stay at Home with Crazy Coqs is providing a thrice-weekly fix on YouTube as some of its regular artists post recordings from their homes or reissue previous Crazy Coqs performances.
Jason Kravits’ cabaret at Crazy Coqs is wildly funny. This singer-entertainer is so dynamic that I would suggest he be prescribed for those with the blues.
Wendy Klein enjoys Keith Hutson’s artful recapturing of the atmosphere of Music Hall
Five hundred years ago, Peckham was green and pleasant. By the 1980s and 1990s, when two of its most famous fictional characters Del Boy and Rodney Trotter were plying their dodgy wares, even the pigeons wanted to be elsewhere, or so Rodney tells us.
Any story-line involving a single woman is inherently more dramatic than a narrative of a single man because of biology’s cruel deadlines.
Nuts in May. Review by Alan Price. Hard to think of many comedy films set on a campsite. There may be some interesting European cinema out there, but I’ve not come across it. We have to return to 1976 and Mike Leigh’s hilarious TV play Nuts in May all about a camping trip that goes horribly wrong.
By Alan Price • comedy, film, year 2026 • Tags: Alan Price, comedy, film