Features
The Reading List: Stand-up comedy
Last week UK comics voted Daniel Kitson the funniest man in Britain. But what books should budding stand-ups not put down?
Inside Features
Cultural Life: Tim Minchin, comedian
Friday, 15 April 2011
Books: Christopher Hitchens's autobiography, 'Hitch 22', is a poignant read, and very interesting because I have a very poor knowledge of recent political history – or for that matter distant political history. I'm also reading 'Jasper Jones' by Craig Silvey, about an Aboriginal kid and a white kid who find a dead woman, hanging from a rope. I was completely sucked in.
A winning formula: Comedian Robin Ince is heading out on a nationwide tour with a group of scientists
Thursday, 7 April 2011
In the last few weeks I have been asked 11 times, "is science the new rock'n'roll?" As we know, in the last 20 years, anything that starts to play to audiences above 17 can be classed as the new rock'n'roll.
There are heroes of comedy... and there's Frankie Boyle
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Matthew Norman: It takes a bespoke brand of mental infirmity to confuse courage with a penchant for bullying.
My Secret Life: Richard Herring, comedian, 43
Saturday, 2 April 2011
My parents were... My dad was my headmaster and my mother also taught me at school. I did a whole show about whether it psychologically scarred me, but when I look back, I think all the bad things about me were already in existence. I was in a fortunate position where I had a very solid family – my parents have been together since they were 13. It's almost hard to live up to that!
Cultural Life: Frank Skinner, comedian
Friday, 25 March 2011
Comedy: I liked Roisin Conaty at the Soho Theatre. She won Best Comedy Newcomer at Edinburgh. She was her own support act, so supporting a character she played who was nothing like her real self.
Red nose... ears, arms and legs: Ronni Ancona joins Comic Relief's desert trek in Kenya
Thursday, 17 March 2011
My involvement with Comic Relief over the past 10 years has always been in a comedic capacity, but I'd always wanted to visit one of the regions where they spend the money that's raised.
The Diary: Woody Allen; Stephen Merchant; DC Moore's Honest; Ai Weiwei; Róisín McBrinn
Friday, 4 March 2011
Tickling schtick: The wit of Ken Dodd
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Who says variety is dead? Ken Dodd has been on the road for six decades and can still slay a crowd. Michael Coveney meets him on his marathon tour
Aziz Ansari delivers a lot of bang for your buck
Friday, 18 February 2011
The lithe and livewire US comedian Aziz Ansari arrives in London next week to play five nights at London's Soho Theatre. Though this run doesn't quite have the ring of playing the Carnegie Hall back in New York, as he did in January, Ansari's already sold out Soho dates are another sign of the growing interest in this business graduate-turned-comic, who will have just turned 28 when he lands here.
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