Nina Conti (unedited – 070309)

Nina Conti’s part of a double act. She couldn’t be more different from her partner, Monk, though – she’s friendly, gentle and eager to please, while he’s lazy, violently bad-tempered and fond of shouting out crude sexual insults onstage. He’s also a felt monkey, which means ventriloquist Conti is the one who has to be held responsible for his actions. Much of her act involves largely unsuccessful attempts to maintain a sense of decorum and curb Monk’s worst excesses, and it often feels like she’s using the puppet to vent the darker, less acceptable parts of her own personality. She’s the prim, timid one who’s filled with inhibitions, while he couldn’t give a toss about anything or anyone. As a result there’s tension, unpredictability, and the kind of satisfyingly big laughs that make the pair of them a dependable treat for audiences. Anyone who’s felt the urge to shout rude words at inappropriate moments will enjoy Conti’s innocently scandalised face as Monk lets fly with the expletives.

celebrity funny women (unedited – 07/03/09)

It doesn’t take much for a stand-up to become a TV presenter, as comedians from Clive Anderson to Alex Zane have found out in their time. Exactly how easy it is go the other way should become clearer by the end of this cheerful one-off event. Organisers Funny Women have been helping to develop female talent on the circuit for the last six years, thanks mainly to their annual New Act competition. Now they’re giving a group of celebrities, including sports anchorwoman Gaby Logan and Eighties Blue Peter siren Janet Ellis, one day to pick up the basics of stand-up before delivering a set at the London Studios. Each celeb gets their own mentor comedienne, so helping Janet to deliver some jokes she wrote earlier will be Jan Ravens, the virtuoso impressionist from TV’s Dead Ringers. The whole shindig will help to raise money for Put Your Foot Down, a campaigning charity working against violence to women and the spread of HIV and AIDS in the developing world.

laura solon (unedited – 07/03/09)

Seemingly poised for stardom thanks to a knack for creating instantly memorable and grotesque comic characters, it’d be easy to dub Laura Solon the next Catherine Tate. What makes her different is that she specialises in brilliantly written verbal comedy, displayed at hugely enjoyable length in this latest Radio 4 series. Almost every sketch is a showcase for ultra-deft characterisation and always surprising gags. There’s a real sense of superior craftsmanship about this series, making her seem more like a successor to the tradition of Fry and Laurie than anyone else on the contemporary scene. Her various alter egos allow Solon to mix it up a bit, with some characters offering delicate observational comedy (check out the divorcee entrepreneur perched forever on the verge of tears) and others diving headlong into the surreal – her shrilly demented Teutonic heiress, forever plotting coups in the company of a china model of a lion, is a blindingly original highpoint. Solon’s surely going to be bringing this stuff to TV soon (following her startling cameos as the Polish barista in Harry and Paul) – this release shows exactly why she deserves it.

Alex Horne – 21/02/09 (unedited)

Where Ken Dodd had the tickling stick, Alex Horne has the PowerPoint presentation. Notorious for reducing any form of argument to a string of bullet points and naff animations, in Horne’s hands PowerPoint becomes a ruthlessly efficient comedy tool. Rather than employing it to simplify complex points the way Bill Gates intended, Horne uses the software to add inappropriate layers of gravitas and over-elaboration to mundane subjects. It’s a ploy that fits well with his slightly stiff, fish-out-of-water stage persona, allowing this one-time Countdown contestant the opportunity to engage in geeky over-analysis of tiny details to huge comic effect. This latest show tracks his progress over the course of a year as he attempts to out-birdwatch his middle-aged father. It’s a low-key take on the recently popular genre of stand-up quests (as with many of these quests, there’s soon to be a tie-in book), and the gentle premise offers a platform for some sharp gags and surprisingly insightful philosophising.

Andy Zaltzman – 22/02/09 (unedited)

Like Richard Herring, Andy Zaltzman has had to adjust to working more frequently on his own these days – in his case, because his former partner John Oliver has been co-opted onto The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, New York’s ne plus ultra of topical comedy. But the extra space seems to suit Zaltzman, giving him more opportunity to develop his unusually fanciful approach to satire. There’s a tendency for British comics who take their cues from the news agenda to start simply hammering home the ridiculousness of the people in power – anyone who’s been bored to the verge of conservatism by right-on stand-ups incessantly pointing out that George Bush gets his words wrong will know the limitations of that format. What’s fresh about Zaltzman’s act is that he uses political stories and personalities as jumping-off points for his love of flowery language and surreal analogies. At the same time, there’s a smart analytical mind here, providing pithy and hard-to-gainsay arguments along with each bizarre image.

Richard Herring – 21/02/09 (unedited)

Stewart Lee and Richard Herring used to make a lot of TV hay out of mock-deconstructing their comic partnership. It was, they said, necessary for any successful double act to make sure fake differences existed between them. So Lee adopted the role of a faintly caricatured chic intellectual, while Herring was the knockabout foil, forever lowering the tone with a stream of postmodern schoolboy innuendo. Post-split, both performers have continued to mine original and high-quality comedy out of these contrasting styles. As a stand-up, Herring‘s much more feisty and hands-on with the audience than his ever-deadpan erstwhile partner, and he’s still a master of the scholarly approach to crudity (watch out for his elegant treatise on the correct playground hand-gestures to symbolise different types of sexual activity). But he’s also always willing to push himself, often teasing his crowd by stretching out material seemingly way beyond its elastic limit. When it works, everything escalates to an irresistible climax – and when it doesn’t quite, you can find out exactly what went wrong by checking his compulsive (for reader and author) daily blog at richardherring.com.

The Invisible Dot Club (14/02/09) – Unedited

The middle of a recession may not seem like the ideal time to launch
an experimental new comedy enterprise, but it seems there are still
promoters willing to gamble on pulling in punters with something more
imaginative than the familiar old four acts, one compere and a mic
set-up. Launching with a show at the hipsters’ paradise of Camden’s
Proud Galleries, the Invisible Dot Club plans to offer themed nights
featuring a quixotic mix of stand-up, sketches, music, art and video,
and including the promise of live endoscopies – whether it’s the
performers or the audience who’ll need the strongest stomachs is
unclear. It’d be easy to see this as all a bit cooler-than-thou, were
it not for the mass of top quality talent involved. The bill for the
opening night features the rightly venerated Daniel Kitson (heir to
Eddie Izzard’s old role as the best comic you never see on TV), quirky
Aussie muso Tim Minchin, and elder statesmen of alternative comedy
Simon Munnery, Kevin Eldon and Arthur Smith.

Ava Vidal (14/02/09) – Unedited

It’s said that one reason why male performers dominate the stand-up
scene in terms of sheer weight of numbers is that women find the
typical beer-fuelled, lairy atmosphere of comedy clubs a little
intimdating. But with Ava Vidal, the intimidation comes directly from
the stage in gloriously lacerating waves. Vidal’s had to cope with her
fair share of stigmas growing up, but onstage she discusses her
experience of racism and her status as a schoolgirl single mother with
massive poise and a fiercely intelligent wit. She never plays up to
the prejudices of her audience, but instead pounds out her own
unapologetic but highly appealing worldview. Anyone who gets in her
way – teachers, exes, the fool who once attempted to involve her in a
conversation about golliwogs – is torn apart with cold-eyed contempt.
The sustained brilliance of the writing and the unflinching,
down-to-earth brutality of Vidal’s shtick make for a compelling and
hugely fresh set.

Russell Peters (14/02/09) – Unedited

The idea of a stand-up from across the Atlantic who delivers riff after riff on the differences between black guys and white guys has become something of a comedy cliché. However, Russell Peters’ take is a bit different. For one thing, he’s Canadian, and his approach shows signs of influences from way beyond the New York comedy club tradition – for example, there’s a very English love of silly puns and double entendres. He’s also Indian, still a relative rarity among comics both here and across the pond. While there’s a lot about his approach that’s reasonably broad, including multiple take-offs of the Indian accent and a number of hilarious tales about his alternately foolish and terrifying father, Peters also has a wonderful eye for the minute details of racial difference, and the problems (as well as amusement) it throws up. Rather than simply exploiting these things for easy comic gain, he makes them seem so ridiculous that boundaries appear to dissolve amid the laughter. This one-stop visit to our shores comes just days after the UK release of his new DVD, Red, White and Brown.

Key and Basden (Nov 08) – Unedited

TIM KEY AND TOM BASDEN 

These two rising stars come with an impressive pedigree. Making up half of Radio 4′s increasingly assured Cowards (alongside Stefan Golaszewski, whose heartfelt solo show “…Speaks About A Girl He Once Loved” is one to keep your eye out for), Key and Basden have already racked up an impressive haul of awards and nominations between them. And as a partnership, they’ve recently wowed audiences with Freeze! – a brilliantly chaotic sketch show that replaces the conventions of the genre with an ineffable quality that the duo like to call “divvyness”. Freeze! is coming to London in October, but this week Key and Basden offer something different again. Committed to pursuing unusual routes to the funny, they’ll be splitting an hour to showcase Key’s poetry and Basden’s songs. If that strikes you as a little precious, think again – these two have all the necessary ammunition to make sure the night comes out top-heavy with laughs.