Tag: Comedy

Sometimes, Big Boys Do Cry

We binge-watched the third and final series of Big Boys on Channel 4, having been hooked from the very first episode of series 1. A semi-autobiographical account of the university years of writer and comedian Jack Rooke, Big Boys follows his journey from freshers’ week to graduation. As if coping with teenage angst and social awkwardness isn’t enough, Jack is also dealing with the agony of his father’s tragic death from cancer and exploring his own sexuality. The real Jack is both writer and narrator.

BAFTA nominated and featuring a rich tapestry of vivid characters, the sad-happy comedy deftly weaves together challenging themes of grief, coming of age, mental health, suicide and sexuality with a beautifully light touch, making us belly laugh one minute and well up the next. It’s rude, lewd and pulls few punches.

Jack’s touching relationship with his mother is one of the show’s many incredible highlights. Here’s a small taste from series 1. His coming-out confession halfway through the clip gets me every time. Because, sometimes, big boys do cry.

The Nimmo Twins – Normal for Norfolk

After a six-year hiatus, local comedy heroes The Nimmo Twins (Owen Evans and Karl Minns) were back treading the boards at the Norwich Playhouse for the second of their twenty-fifth-anniversary shows. Despite their glittering quarter-century career, to our shame, we’d never heard of them, but then a couple of fellow villagers put us firmly in the picture.

I’m glad they did. In skit and sketch, satire and song, characters old and new, the Twins put us straight about all things normal for Norfolk – the ups and mostly downs of Norwich City Football Club, local petty bureaucrats who couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, geriatric TV presenters well past their sell-by, livestock-lovin’ farmhands with single-digit IQs and flash Londoners with their fancy cars and holiday homes, all delivered in the broadest of Naarfuk and with tongues firmly in cheek. It’s a total, affectionate piss-take and it’s hysterical.

Betty White, Thanks for the Laughs

I was so sad to hear of the death of my favourite Golden Girl, Betty White, just a few days before her centenary. She was the last of those amazing ladies from that amazing show. I was rather obsessed with The Golden Girls back in their heyday. I still am a bit. I have several of the earlier seasons on DVD, which I still watch from time to time. It’s a treat that still makes me laugh out loud. Way ahead of its time, the sharp and witty script, delivered with relish and style by the Girls, has endured while others just seem like old hat. And only a proper fan would buy a Golden Girls cookbook. Yep, that would be me then.

Betty White was already comedy gold when she landed the role of Rose Nylund, the kindly but hopelessly naïve dumb blonde from St Olav, Minnesota. Except, of course, those clever writers made sure Rose was not always quite as dumb as she seemed. Betty played the role superbly.

RIP Betty White. Thank you for the laughs.

Summer of Laughs (Part 2)

Summer of Laughs (Part 2)

Hot on the heels of Teutonic comic Henning Wehn came a comedy night courtesy of Shaft of Wit and hosted by our very own village watering hole, the White Horse. It’s a regular gig but we were comedy night virgins, drawn by another big name off the telly box – Arthur Smith, the original grumpy old man, a tribe I’ve recently joined. He was top billing for a quartet of stand-ups – him, John Mann, Pam Ford and Earl Okin. They were funny and original – more a pit of wit than a shaft of laughs. But, for me, the stand out stand-up was Aussie Pam (or rather Brit-Aussie-Brit Pam). Comedy-wise, I tend to go for the female of the species and Pam Ford is right up there.

Change channels now if you’re easily offended by the lewd and the rude!

Summer of Laughs (Part 1)

It’s been a comedy season of fun and laughter, despite the COVID blues and the hit and miss weather. After drag gags from the extraordinary La Voix a couple of weeks ago, we were back at Interlude in the Close for another comic treat – Henning Wehn, the self-styled ‘German Comedy Ambassador for Teutonic jolliness’.

Images courtesy of Norwich Theatre

A regular on many a TV panel show, Henning has been living and working in Britain for twenty years and provides a ballsy view of the life on these islands from a continental perspective, always delivered with wit, insight and affection.

His was a show in preview called Das Neuen Materialen Nachten (The New Materials Night) – a brand new routine, testing the water before a big tour. And there was plenty of water to go round – our bottom halves were soaked through as we rushed along Cathedral Close and squelched across the sodden playing fields of the lower school. Liam was wearing trainers – well you can imagine.

What Henning ambitiously called a masterpiece under construction was more a work in progress but there was plenty of witty banter, and the jokes old and new made sure the angry clouds didn’t dampen our spirits. The wine helped, of course.

Absolutely Fabulous – the Movie

Absolutely Fabulous – the Movie

Was it? Well… yes and no. Naturally, we had to see it and naturally it was accompanied by a glass of fizz (that would be Prosecco – our austerity-era budget doesn’t quite stretch to Bolli). The history of transferring much-revered TV sitcoms to the big screen is littered with ignoble defeat. For me, the Ab Fab experience was more of an inconclusive skirmish. The plot was paper thin, just a flimsy device for the outrageous antics of Edina and Patsy. But then, the strength of Ab Fab was always in the characters rather than the storyline. I did find the endless rollcall of celebrity cameos a bit wearing and the humour, though funny in parts, more miss than hit.

Absolutely Fabulous

But I couldn’t help empathising with poor Eddy, way past her dump-by date and hopelessly floundering in a multi-media world she no longer understood. Maybe she should have sold the big house in Holland Park and retired to a converted cowshed in the French hills? A few years in Provence? There’s no story in that, is there?

Pits and Perverts

Thirty years ago, the National Union of Miners (NUM) was in a desperate battle with the Thatcher Government to save their livelihoods and their communities. It was a war of attrition that went on for twelve long months. It was also during the dark days of the gay ‘plague’ with John Hurt scaring the life out of OAPs with crashing tombstones every night on national TV and a certain fire and brimstone chief constable saying that gay people were ‘swirling in a human cesspit of their own making.’ Believe me, it was no fun on the picket line or the dance floor. The Police had a habit of raiding both. At the time, I was living with a quantity surveyor who was neither ‘out’ at work or to his family. What sexuality has to do with counting bricks I shall never know but that was the way back then – most closets were firmly locked from the inside. Society had a habit of making hypocrites of us all. I was his guilty secret (needless to say, he wasn’t mine).

So what do striking miners have in common with dancing queens? Not very much you might think. I didn’t think so either until I saw Pride, a new BBC Film by Marcus Warchus, the new Creative Director at the Old Vic. On general release today, this funny and illuminating movie is based on the true story of a small group of London activists who raised money to help the families of the strikers. They called themselves ‘Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners’ and they did exactly what it said on the collecting tin. Officially, the über-straight, blue collar, backs-to-the-wall-lads NUM weren’t too keen on accepting the support of a gaggle of dirty pervs, even during the worst of times. So the brave pervs took their cause direct to the coal face by sprinkling a little fairy dust (and quite a lot of cash) on a small Welsh mining village. Cue the considerable talents of some seasoned pros (Imelda Staunton, Bill Nighy) who know how to deliver a line or two and some gifted fresh faces to inject a dash of youthful angst and exuberance. The clash of cultures is pure magic. Moving without being sugary, political without being preachy, candid without being gratuitous and clever without being patronising, the film is a joy to watch and one of the best British films I’ve ever seen. Really, it’s that good.

Joan Rivers, RIP

2010 Sundance Film Festival - "Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work" PortraitsI was really saddened to hear about the death of Joan Rivers. She was a one-off, a no nonsense, shoot from the hip, tell it as she saw it kind of gal who fought hard against massive odds to crawl her way to the top at a time when a woman’s place was either in the kitchen or the bedroom. And she was a great supporter of gay rights long before it was a trendy bandwagon. Many years ago, I saw Ms Rivers in concert in the West End. Her Gatling Gun wit left the audience shell-shocked. I laughed so much, I hyperventilated. During her untouchable years as the elder stateswoman of American comedy, the great and the good queued up to be insulted by her because if you hadn’t been dressed down by Joan, you were a no-body. Her very last public rant was about the recent upsurge in violence between Israel and Palestine. It was not her finest hour. Joan Rivers deserves to be remembered for more than that.

Lady Haha

Lady Haha

Lady Haha Playhouse Theatre

To honour International Women’s Day (8th March), we plopped through the puddles on a blustery night to watch a quintet of female comics. The gals with gags strutted their stuff for the ‘Lady Haha’ show at the Playhouse, Norwich (a fab bar with a theatre attached). Generally, I’m not keen on stand up – a bit too hit and miss or too clever by half in my experience. I needn’t have worried. The acts – Grainne Maguire, Amy Howerska, Vikki Stone, Diane Spencer and headliner, Tiffany Stevenson – tickled my ribs with their bawdy take on feminism, racism, gingaphobia, relationships, dating, men, oversized willies and orgasms (or lack thereof). These funny ladies of the night are going places.

PS: I was a tad disappointed not to see Aisling Bea who was originally billed to appear, mainly because she sounds like a sickly insect. 

PPS: Vikki Stone is a younger, filthier version of the superlative Victoria Wood and is quite a hit on You Tube. This is one of her lewd tunes. Best not watch if you’re easily offended.

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Julian’s Vacant Position

I’ve always had a soft spot for Julian Clary. Britain has a glorious tradition of camp comedians tripping out bawdy innuendos with mincing aplomb – Larry Grayson, John Inman and Frankie Howerd to name but three – but Julian was the first to place his sexuality at the very heart of his act. Sexual ambiguity and suggestive salvos from the back of the closet are not Julian’s style. He slaps it on with a shovel, love it or hate it. The verdict from the predominately straight, middle class, middle aged audience at Norwich’s Theatre Royal was unanimous. They loved it. I’m glad to report that Blighty’s continued pre-occupation with the lewd, the rude and the crude is alive and giggling. We loved it too. Julian provided an unexpected bonus, a marriage proposal live on stage from audience member Samantha to her partner Bonny. A ‘yes’ from Bonny was rewarded with a lively ovation all round. Julian ended his glittering passage with a nod to his more thoughtful side by speak-singing “It’s not yet cool to be queer,” a moving political broadcast for those poor souls living in less tolerant parts of our rainbow world. Julian’s show does exactly what it says on the glittery tin. He may be a one-joke comic but, blimey, what a joke.

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