Category: comedy

comedy, not a book, theatre

Not a Book: How the Other Half Loves

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Another theatre trip this Sunday, and I actually saw this before I saw The Comedy About Spies, but it was an early preview and opening night was only Tuesday this week so I was a good girl and saved it.

How the Other Half Loves is a 1969 sex farce written by Alan Aykbourn, it is his ninth play (his 92nd premieres in Scarborough next month) and in fact was one of his first big successes. It follows three couples across the course of a couple of days, with two different homes existing in one set. When Fiona Foster and Bob Philips’s need to hide their affair from their spouses, they use a third couple – the Featherstones – as an alibi. William and Mary have no idea that this is going on as their lives collide with the Fosters and the Philips and much hilarity ensues.

I have seen a couple of Alan Aykbourn plays, with mixed results, but I do love a farce and this has Roger Allam (on whom more later) and so I trotted down to the Old Vic on a ticket deal. And yes it has its dated moments, but it’s really clever and there are lots of laughs. However, I watched a not insignificant portion of it through my fingers because the cringe got too much for me. As I said to Him Indoors on the way home – I think you’d like it, but I can’t put myself through that again to go with you.

It’s got a cracking cast though – led by Roger Allam, who as you can see from the video above is prepared to look ridiculous. I first saw him on stage nearly two decades ago in another farce – opposite Mark Rylance in Boeing Boeing – and obviously I adore Cabin Pressure of which he is a core component. He can do Serious (I’ve also seen him as Prospero in The Tempest) but comedy is where I have enjoyed him the most. And although every character here has their moment to shine, his Frank Foster is brilliant – he’s the department manager of the other two and has the status and pomposity to go with it but he’s also clueless and bumbling and obssessed with trivialities and under it all he’s actually maybe the kindest character of the lot. As his wife Dorothy Atkinson is channeling Margo from the Good LIfe but with more secrets but Laura Elsworthy as Mary Featherstone is doing something really interesting with the shyest mouse you ever did see who manages to do a roar by the end.

It’s is also really cleverly constructed – the in the round set up and the competing action in the two different houses, which culminates in a simulataneous dinner party as the Featherstones have dinner at the Fosters (on Thursday night) and the Philips’ (on Friday) swiveling in their seats to denote which time line they’re in at any time. And I realise that that may sound mad, but it works and it’s not even the craziest thing that Aykbourn has done in his plays – he can make The Comedy About Spies four bedroom set look simple – whether it’s this, Bedroom Farce (three bedrooms, one night and morning), The Norman Conquests (three plays each set in a different part of a house across one weekend) or House and Garden (two plays, one cast, performed simultaneously in adjoining stages). I’m not sure this is the best place to start with Aykbourn, but if you’re interested in plays with interesting concepts and can cope with Alan Partridge without dying inside then this is worth a look. It’s also the reason why I’ve had Peter Sarstedt’s Where Do You Go To My Lovely stuck in my head on and off for nearly two weeks!

Have a great Sunday

comedy, not a book, theatre

Not a Book: The Comedy About Spies

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I’m back with my second Mischief show of the year. After Thespians back in May (with an almost entirely new to Mischief cast) today I’m back with a bunch of the OGs in their latest West End show, which premiered last autumn and sold so well I didn’t manage to get to see it and now is back – and this time I was quicker with the ticketbuying finger. And I’m posting this a bit later in the day than usual, partly because I only saw it yesterday and it was a late night home and I needed time to recover but also because tonight is opening night.

It’s the early 1960s and in London a rogue secret agent has stolen plans for a top secret weapon. Hot on it’s trail are agents from the CIA and the KGB all of whom converge on the same hotel to try and track it down and steal it back. However they’re not the only people at the hotel and soon unsuspecting fellow guests are drawn into their plans including an actor preparing for an audition to play James Bond and a baker trying to work up the nerve to propose to his girlfriend. And of course because this is Mischief nothing goes to plan for anyone and it soons descends into chaos and a glorious farce.

As I said at the top this is a revival after a very successful run in the West End last summer, which I suspect might have otherwise extended then if it wasn’t for the fact that most of the cast were already lined up to do Christmas Carol Goes Wrong very soon after this closed – so close in fact that there was probably only just enough time for a holiday and rehearsals to get it up and running. This has a fresh set up and cast of characters but all of the hallmarks of Mischief’s best stuff – slapstick, physical comedy and a joke rate that hardy gives you time to finish laughing at the last joke before the next one hits. I think the second half of the first act, which has a brilliantly clever set split into quarters to make four hotel rooms, colour coded, is the high point of the show but that may be because the stunts and jokes are at their height before the second half has to bring it all to some sort of conclusion. And I did worry about how they were going to end it satisfactorily, but they managed to land it just fine. I shouldn’t have doubted them.

All of the Mischief regulars are turning in great performances, but the more I see him, the more I become convinced that Dave Hearn is the strongest and most versatile actor of all of them. He originated Max in the Cornley shows – who is distracted by the audience, frequently has a complicated love life and is gets relegated to supporting roles. He’s great here as Lance, the CIA agent, turning in a really clever performance for reasons that I can’t really explain without giving huge spoilers which would be mean.

If this sounds like your sort of show, then do try and get to see it while it’s on this summer – the set is so complicated (travelators! that giant dollshouse hotel set!) that I don’t think it would be easy to tour and I think it’s one of Mischief’s best shows in age – I think we preferred it to Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, for all that I love the Cornley characters deeply.

comedy, not a book

Not A Book: Mel Brooks

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Do not be confused by the name of the film – Mel Brooks is 100 today! He’s a comedy genius – and if you’ve missed how much I love the musical version of his movie The Producers, I don’t think you’ve been here much! I really wish I could find a clip that really shows you how genius the show is but I don’t think any of their showcase performances really demonstrates that, possibly because out of context some of the numbers.. well. How can you unleash Springtime for Hitler on people without the context that they’re trying to create the worst show ever seen so it closes straight away? Anyway, I think the closest is this one from the Big Night of Musicals.

I will be attempting to mark the occasion by watching that documentary I referenced at the top, and if I can’t manage that with the streaming services at my disposal, I will be watching one of his movies. And in case you were wondering, yes I am going to try and make it back to the West End version one more time before it closes in September.

Have a great Sunday – try not to melt in the heat!

comedy, not a book, streaming

Not a Book: I’m Chevy Chase, and You’re Not

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Happy Sunday, it’s documentary o’clock again, and this is one that came out around New Year, so I’m even kind of topical for once. Check Me.

I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not is a documentary film exploring the life and career of Chevy Chase. For those who are younger than me: Now in his 80s, Chevy Chase was the breakout star from the first season of Saturday Night Live in 1975 and left the show in its second season to go to Hollywood. In the 1980s he was in a string of box office hits – in Caddyshack, three National Lampoon’s Vacation movies and the one I remember being repeated on TV when I was a child: Three Amigos. But as the 90s progressed his movie career stalled out and he only really returned to prominence when he was cast in the sitcom Community in 2009, and then that ended badly. As you can see from the trailer, this has interviews with the man himself, his family, some of his costars and others who have worked with him behind the scenes and a few other famous talking heads.

Now the other thing that you need to know about him is that he’s got a bit of a reputation for being an “asshole”. I read Nick de Semylen’s Wild and Crazy Guys back in 2023 and he didn’t come over as particularly sympathetic in that. And he’s not helping himself out in some of the interviews that he does for this either. There are some glaring absences among the talking heads of people who have worked with him. So he’s not a massively sympathetic figure a lot of the time. But his childhood sounds grim and he’s been married to the same woman for more than 40 years and so that helps soften him a little. And he’s been ill recently – with time in a coma which has left him with some memory loss, which along with the coke addiction may mean that he’s not (always) lying when he says that he doesn’t remember doing or saying what others say he did or said.

This is directed by Marina Zenovich, who also made Lance about Lance Armstrong (which is really good) and Robin Williams: Come Inside my Mind (which I have on my to watch list) as well as other documentaries including two about Roman Polanski and another about Richard Prior. So she has plenty of experience with making films about comedians and it shows because the clips she’s picked of Chevy in his comedy prime are really good. If you weren’t around for his hey day (which I wasn’t) it’s easy to just dismiss him because of the stories about what a nightmare he can be. But he’s hard going when he’s not playing a character. He really is. Just read this New York Times interview he did with Zenovich to promote the documentary if you don’t believe me.

This is on Sky Documentaries and Now TV in the UK and on CNN in the US at the moment. It is due to appear on HBO Max at the end of January

Happy Sunday!

comedy, not a book

Not a Book: Greg Davies

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So I’m finishing off Brighton/seaside week with one of the other things we did while we were there – which was see Greg Davies’s latest tour: Full Fat Legend. And before I get to that, it should be noted that we saw him in the Brighton Dome – aka the site of Abba’s triumph at Eurovision in 1974. So that was a) very cool and b) also a sign of how much Eurovision has grown because this is a capacity of about 1,500 people – and 30 years on last year’s contest was held in the15,500 capacity Malmo arena that’s the second largest venue in Sweden. Anway, to the comedy…

This is Greg’s first tour in seven years, and while we had definitely seen him before, I can’t tell you if it was that tour, or the one before. But either way, it was a long time ago. And since then Taskmaster has got even bigger (we have done a recent binge) – which I’m assuming is (along with Covid) the reason for the big gap between tours. In Full Fat Legend Greg is telling stories of the things that have happened to him in the last year and I’m not sure how much more than that I can tell you without ruining it, but it’s been *quite* a year.

I laughed so hard I cried my eye make up off and even if I had realised ‘d done that (which I didn’t) I wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it without leaving the show, and by the time I did realise I was back at the hotel having walked a mile and a bit though central Brighton and along the seafront with mascara marks all over my cheekbones (how? I don’t know). It got a little bit close to too embarrassing for me to bear, but only very briefly. And it’s a big long set that Greg is doing too – we had a support act who did about 25/30 minutes and then there’s an interval and then it’s 90 minutes of Greg.

We were incredibly lucky to get tickets very last minute – because looking at the tour website writing this, a lot of the venues are a lot bigger and every other date this year is sold out – except for a “last few” for Wembley Arena in June. But the goodness is there are arena dates in March 2026 which have tickets. And so if this sounds like your thing, plan ahead!

Have a great Sunday everyone.

comedy, concerts, not a book

Not a Book: Bill Bailey

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It’s been a bit of a run of theatre the last few weeks, but this Sunday it is comedy – but at a theatre (not a club or a stadium) as I had a last minute trip to see Bill Bailey’s residency at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket this week.

If you haven’t come across Bill Bailey before (which I find hard to believe if you’re in the UK because he’s won Strictly) he’s a stand up comedian and musician who is also known for acting in the TV comedy Black Books and the movie Hot Fuzz among other things. I was trying to count how many times I’ve seen him live and I think this is the fourth or fifth time – and he’s always incredibly funny and inventive.

I am a pretty mediocre musician – when I was at my best I was about Grade 6/7 but music theory is my bete noire, so I really enjoy the way that he deconstructs how music works and makes it funny. But it’s not all music theory, some of it is just funny – in the current show he’s got some bluetooth music balls that are set up to make drum noises, and a laser harp. What’s not to like. He’s also got a new Kraftwerk parody – and the original one was one of my favourite skits on the Part Troll DVD that I rented from LoveFilm back in the day – so I’ll finish up today by posting that original.

Bill Bailey: Thoughtifier continues at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket until the 15th February.