The Crumple Zone. Review by Barbara Lewis. For anyone nervous their personal relationship might not withstand the stress of the festive period, “The Crumple Zone” offers a manic reassurance that we can survive the impact of an emotional crash, but the pain is excruciating.
comedy

The Comedy of Errors. Review by Barbara Lewis. This is the HandleBards’ uplifting summer tour, which after 935 miles of pedalling, brought the cycling players to a picnicking audience in the grounds of Horace Walpole’s Gothic revival mansion at Strawberry Hill, west London.
By Barbara Lewis • comedy, plays, playwrights, theatre, year 2024 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, comedy, plays, playwrights, theatre

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.
By Barbara Lewis • comedy, plays, playwrights, theatre, year 2023 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, comedy, plays, playwrights, theatre

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.
By Barbara Lewis • comedy, music, musicals, theatre, year 2023 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, comedy, music, musicals, theatre

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.
By Barbara Lewis • comedy, plays, theatre, year 2022 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, comedy, plays, theatre

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.
By Barbara Lewis • books, comedy, year 2021 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, books, comedy

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.
By Barbara Lewis • comedy, music, performance, year 2020 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, comedy, music, performance

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.
By Julia Pascal • comedy, music, performance, year 2020 • Tags: comedy, Julia Pascal, music, performance

Wendy Klein enjoys Keith Hutson’s artful recapturing of the atmosphere of Music Hall
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, comedy, poetry reviews 0 • Tags: books, poetry, Wendy Klein
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.
By Barbara Lewis • comedy, musicals, theatre, year 2019 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, musicals, theatre
Any story-line involving a single woman is inherently more dramatic than a narrative of a single man because of biology’s cruel deadlines.
By Barbara Lewis • comedy, musicals, theatre, year 2018 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, comedy, musicals, theatre
The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show. Review by Barabara Lewis. The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show is a mood-enhancing, life-affirming start to the day – and after an 18-year run at the Edinburgh Fringe and an 11-year absence from Brighton, where it began, it is back on the English coast.
By Barbara Lewis • added recently on London Grip, comedy, theatre • Tags: Barbara Lewis, comedy, theatre