Must see more live comedy this year
- February 28th, 2010 filed in Personal, Politics
- 1 Comment »
I don’t see enough live comedy. On the occasions I do, I always enjoy myself even when the quality of the acts has sometimes been a mixed bag. So this year I’m trying to catch more live comedy & this week I managed to catch one half of my favourite comedy double acts from my student years – Richard Herring.
His show this week at The Glee Club – ‘Hitler Moustache’ was hugely enjoyable and despite having a seemingly throwaway idea as the premise, it contained some interesting points about the appropriation & distortion of symbols by the far right – the Nazis distorting the original meaning of the Swastika, the BNP wrapping themselves up in the Union Jack, peppering their leaflets with images of Spitfires (a Polish one oddly enough… and weren’t Spitfires used to fight fascism?), and Nick Griffin wearing a Poppy all year round in order to wrap up hatred & sell it on as patriotism. It doesn’t sound like a particularly laugh-filled gig, but Herring managed to make his points without sounding preachy & he was bloody funny, he’s still on tour & definitely worth seeing.
A few months ago I bought a few Stewart Lee DVDs and eager to balance out the cynicism a little bit I picked up a Tim Vine DVD as well, so it seemed appropriate that a few days after seeing Richard Herring, I caught Tim Vine at the Wulfrun Hall. No politics, no overall theme, just a continuous stream of silly one-line gags. No sooner have you finished laughing at one joke when you realize you just missed two more – fantastically entertaining performer who seems to love what he’s doing.
Next up Chris Addison at the Glee Club, followed by Dave Gorman.
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Ah Tim Vine! A mate at work keeps telling me his jokes – I used to watch the quiz show he did on Channel 5 when it first started, just for his cheesy gags.