Has Angus got revues for you! A 70's quarter revival, a young Alan Patridge and graphic anecdotes... (original) (raw)

Edinburgh Fringe Comedy

Radio Active Pleasance Until August 28

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Jonathan Pie Pleasance Until August 28

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Daniel Sloss Edinburgh Int. Conf. Centre Until August 28

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Phil Nichol Assembly Check Point Until August 28

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The last time the comedy collective of Angus Deayton, Geoffrey Perkins (RIP), Helen Atkinson-Wood, Michael Fenton Stevens and Philip Pope played the Edinburgh Fringe, there was no internet, no Premier League, no Eurotunnel and no such thing as a mobile phone, unless you were some kind of Alan Sugar big shot.

In 1979 the quintet put on a sketch show as The Oxford Revue and within a year Radio Active was born, their spoof radio station ruling the air waves for seven years on Radio 4 before becoming KYTV for three series on BBC2.

Of course, Deayton’s career has never recovered from the scandal that saw him lose the anchor gig on Have I Got News For You in 2002, but it’s a treat to see him back in the saddle in Radio Active’s stage show and a reminder that there’s no better deadpan voice in comedy.

Angus Deayton, Philip Pope, Helen Atkinson-Wood and Michael Fenton Stevens make up the seventies comic quintet

Here the four surviving members perform two of their classic scripts from behind their radio mics, reacquainting a partisan audience with fading host Mike Channel (Deayton) and original foodie Anna Daptor (Atkinson-Wood).

There’s a distinctly dated feel to the genteel material, but in one of their pop parodies there’s something quite reaffirming about three greying fiftysomethings thrashing air-guitar to Status Quid’s Boring Song, with Fenton Stevens particularly committed to giving it the full rock god, while another of their songs, Meaningless Songs (In Very High Voices) from the Hee Bee Gee Bees, justifies its reputation as a minor classic.

Comedy revivals can be tricky beasts but the Radio Active crew just about gets away with it.

Coming right up to speed with the modern age, Jonathan Pie was barely a twinkle in unemployed actor Tom Walker’s eye this time last Fringe. Now, more than 50 million online views later, Pie the angry news reporter graduates to the stage, where he finds himself humiliated at having to stand in for John Barrowman on a live Children In Need feed instead of getting on with the serious business of news (which, incidentally, he hates with a passion).

A direct descendant of Chris Morris’s Brass Eye anchor, Pie (who looks like a young Bill Turnbull) is aghast at having to swap his war-zone flak jacket for a panda costume and descends into apoplectic off-camera meltdowns while swigging from a bottle of vodka and hectoring the studio audience.

Jonathan Pie was barely a twinkle in Tom Walker’s eye this time last Fringe, but now Walker has racked up more than 50 million views online as the angry news reporter

Walker’s performance as Pie is spot-on, but if he wants to turn him into a political Alan Partridge he needs to work on the laughs and tone down the partisan ranting.

Where all around are Festival japes, stunts and hype, Daniel Sloss offers a welcome hour of deliciously dark stand-up in a more traditional vein. At just 25, the Scottish comic is ridiculously experienced, presenting his ninth consecutive Fringe show since making his debut as a preternaturally confident 16-year-old.

Mocking comedy with an agenda, he complains, ‘I’m white, middle-class and straight. Where are my struggles? I’ve not even been molested,’ before going on to tear strips off Facebook vegans and alternative medicine.

Daniel Sloss first performed at the Fringe at just 16 years old. Nonetheless, his confidence lets him serve his dark and mocking humour with a sting

Possessed with a vicious streak and a knack for conjuring up a twisted punchline, he reflects on trying to hate less. ‘I used to really hate Justin Bieber but now I think, “What’s he done wrong?” So he spat in his fans’ faces. Who doesn’t want to spit in Justin Bieber’s fans’ faces?’

Brutally honest to the point of audience-gasping, Sloss is enjoying a career trajectory that continues to head skywards.

Phil Nichol is a Fringe legend (anyone remember musical trio Corky And The Juice Pigs?) who won the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2006 and is celebrating 20 years of shows by distilling them all into one super-manic hour of jokes, music, mime, theatre and jazz ballet.

A super-manic hour of jokes, music, mime, theatre and jazz ballet - what more could you want from the Fringe?

Born in Scotland, the Canadian comic zooms about the stage like a deviant dervish, switching from graphic anecdotes (including one very odd one involving a monkey at a safari park) to songs including the climactic I’m The Only Gay Eskimo, which morphs in style from Elvis to Dylan to Morrissey.

It’s impossible not to enjoy an act where the party piece is licking a bald man’s head and trying to guess what he had for lunch. A compelling, albeit exhausting watch.

Louis CK Eventim Apollo, London

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Louis CK is probably the most famous comedian you’ve never heard of. Holder of six Emmys and two Grammys, the American is best known for Louie, a superb semiautobiographical comedy about the unappealing life of a standup. Yet unlike many of his peers, he has not given up on his first love, live performance. After a stint at the Edinburgh Fringe, he played three dates in London – one at Wembley Arena, two at Hammersmith Apollo.

A quasi-nihilist, Louis CK mines the bleakness of existence for blindingly funny nuggets of truth. What you get from Louis CK is a masterclass in misanthropy

And despite his dour outlook, the wry grin that accompanies his blackest material keeps you on board. Suicide, death, divorce, misery and sloth have never been this side-splitting.

He’s especially brilliant at zeroing in on the flipside of life: the human race is comprised of people who didn’t kill themselves, while he might abandon his daughters at any minute. ‘I could leave the house and they’d never find me.’ As a purveyor of comic philosophy, he’s sublime. ‘Love + time - distance = hate’ is not a quote you’ll take home from a Michael McIntyre gig.

No, what you get from Louis CK is a masterclass in misanthropy. Come on over to the dark side.