Tag Archives: comedy

In Between Days

The subjects of my three previous posts had an average age of 78, so I thought it might not be a bad idea to focus on youth today. The four main characters of the British sitcom, The Inbetweeners, would struggle to reach 70 years between them as they are still at secondary school. The series first appeared on E4 in 2008 and three six-part seasons have been screened so far. E4 is Channel 4‘s ‘entertainment’ channel and isn’t one I tune into, so the show completely bypassed me until recently. However, it was recommended to me by a few friends and, having watched the first two series, I must admit that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. The series is set in an English suburb and the most common locations are the local comprehensive school and the homes of the four main protagonists. The main character is Will, who also provides an adept and humorous narration throughout the run of the series. We learn that he is living with his recently-separated mother and that their move to a new area and school may have been necessitated by their sudden drop in income. On Will’s first day at school, we hear his disparaging thoughts about his new environment and colleagues, as well as the other students’ equally derogatory comments about him. It’s obvious that he’s not going to be friends with the popular crowd and seems destined to fall in with the less sociable ones. Instead, he attempts to ingratiate himself with a trio who are neither popular nor nerds, hence the title of the show

Continue reading →

Stop Calling Me Shirley!

An actor who has made me laugh more than most passed away on Sunday. Shirley Leslie Nielsen was born in Canada in 1926 and, after brief stints in the Canadian Air Force and as a radio DJ, he stumbled into acting in his early 20s. He got his first break doing television dramas and you may still catch him popping up on re-runs of Hawaii Five-O, Columbo or Murder She Wrote. He always played the straight guy in these shows and was just as likely to appear as either the villain or the good guy. He reprised these roles for cinema, though his only real successes up until the end of the seventies were in Forbidden Planet (1956) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972). I guess he was destined to be one of those guys you often recognise, but were unable to put a name to the face

Continue reading →

Rich Hall’s Quite Interesting Visit to Limerick


Liverpool‘s late loss to Lille last night must have been deflating for Reds fan Mick Dolan but his spirits were surely raised by the huge turnout at his pub and two music venues. The bar was packed with regulars and visitors as well as loads of punters from the local college who were taking part in some sort of talent show as part of Seachtain na Gaeilge. There was also a fine crowd upstairs to see novelist and Richmond Fontaine frontman Willy Vlautin perform some Americana to a hushed and reverent crowd of music fans. I managed to catch the end of his gig as I had been at the Warehouse to see Vlautin’s fellow countryman Rich Hall play to a loud and irreverent crowd of comedy fans. Hall should be familiar to viewers of QI and Have I Got News For You and even to fans of The Simpsons (more about that later). I read about his “first visit to the treaty” when the Limerick Event Guide made it one of their 5 Best Buys for March. The Limerick Leader‘s Alan Owens also bigged up the gig in his article here where he opens with Hall’s connection to the Simpsons and his Perrier Comedy Award victory at the Edinburgh Fringe for his show about his alter ego, Otis Lee Crenshaw. He won the award in 2000 when he beat off strong competition from an impressive list of nominees that included Dave Gorman, Lee Mack, Catherine Tate, Garth Merenghi and Sean Lock

Continue reading →

Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2009: Comedy

EdinburghComedyFestival-1

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival began in 1947 with just eight theatre companies taking part. It has expanded considerably since then to include comedy, music, dance, opera and musicals and is worth around 75 million quid each year to the Scottish economy. The Fringe is divided into a number of smaller festivals and each of these make up the Fringe Festival. Over one third of all shows in 2009 were comedy performances, slightly ahead of theatre, while music accounted for one sixth of the shows. In just over three weeks, Fringe 2009 sold (wait for it) 1.86 million tickets to over 34,000 performances of more than two thousand shows in 265 venues. Phew! In contrast, I was only able to buy 12 tickets to a dozen performances of twelve shows in ten venues. I guess I’m going to have to get more organised next time. Nearly a quarter of all shows at the Fringe are free and many more cost just a fiver to attend. It is also possible to get tickets for half price on the day for some performance in a 2-for-1 deal. The Fringe does not have a selection committee and, so, is open for anyone to set up their own show. These year there were nearly 19,000 performers putting on shows from sixty different countries. All of these people had to come up with money for travel, accommodation, meals and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, they have to pay a registration fee for their show and print up and distribute posters and flyers as well. Therefore, it may come as no surprise to learn that very few performances actually break even, never mind make a profit. For most of the performers, taking a hit financially is a small price to pay for the the amount of exposure and attention that putting on a show at the Festival brings. I’ve already provided some exposure for the musical acts that I saw this year, so here’s a few words about the more serious business of comedy at this year’s festival

Continue reading →