2,036 stories by "Brian Logan"
Secret location, London"Did you get it?", asks a caption on a wall as we exit A Tender Subject, Mark Storor's new performance installation for Artangel. Well, yes and no. The event, which ta…
Jermyn Street, LondonWhen Rainer Hersch started performing his mix of comedy and classical music, he found himself repeatedly compared to Victor Borge. He didn't know who Borge was " few now…
Samantha Spiro got a breakthrough award at 42, and is about to take on the biggest role of her career. She tells Brian Logan why it was worth the wait Continue reading...
Millican's new show might seal the comedian's entry into the mainstream " but will it get beyond her favourite subjects of sex and self-mockery?The very first line of standup comic Sarah Mil…
Festivals seem to be a permanent fixture on the national theatre scene. So how could I make Camden's Sprint festival different?In a world of perpetual festivals, how does any individual one …
BAC, LondonLeadership is a prized quality in these rudderless times, but we seldom think hard about what it means. Performance poet-turned-comedian Tim Clare has done that thinking for us, a…
Wyndhams, LondonThere comes a point when comic scepticism shades into cynicism " about halfway through Jackie Mason's West End show, to be precise. I enjoyed the first half of this farewell-…
The Daykin sisters do comedy sketches sending up their know-it-all uncle and their parents' divorce. How much of it is true? Brian Logan finds outGiven the comic potential of sibling ri…
Standups like Peter Kay and John Bishop pride themselves on being everyman comedians. So does it matter if they're raking in squillions every year?It's often said that football has never bee…
Standups like Peter Kay and John Bishop pride themselves on being everyman comedians. So does it matter if they're raking in squillions every year? Continue reading...
The truth might hurt but hatchet jobs are too muchA fortnight ago, a new prize was awarded to critic Adam Mars-Jones for the Hatchet Job of the Year, for a review he wrote of Micha…
Riverside Studios, London"We want it swept clean. Totally sanitised," says an American diplomat, plotting the forced depopulation of the Chagos islands to allow the construction of a co…
Orchard theatre, Dartford"Some people leave my show feeling hurt. Broken. Destroyed," says Reginald D Hunter, by way of an introduction. It's part of his considerable charisma, this offer of…
Leicester's Comedy festival will this year host a Silver Standup competition. Will an aggressively young artform embrace older voices?In the course of her standup career, now into its fourth…
Bloomsbury, LondonSay the first thing that comes into your head, runs the golden rule of improv. That's easier said than done, and Terry Alderton's manic standup show dramatises the difficul…
Stewart Lee has released his standup routine as a play script " but does the humour translate to the page?'Standup is finally the big business the industry has hoped it would be ever since N…
G Live, Guildford"If it carries on like this," says cockney comic Micky Flanagan of his newfound success, "I'm seriously considering signing off." Flanagan is a former East End window cleane…
Leicester Square Theatre, LondonOld people's opinions don't count, says Daniel Sloss " which is just so. At 21, he's a precocious professional comic: youthful belligerence is right and prope…
Soho, LondonYears ago, Stuart Silver was one half of Noble and Silver, Britain's most provocative (OK, its only) art-comedy double act. Then Kim Noble went solo, with an appallingly funny do…
Soho, LondonAt the climax of her new one-woman show, Angie Le Mar finally takes to the microphone, riffing in character as US soul singer Falushilah Falashilay. As a diva who judges everyone…
Bloomsbury theatre, London"There's going to be lots of extras on this DVD," says Patrick Monahan. He's not kidding: this is the gig that never ends. The London date of the live tour of the T…
After years of shouting, comedian Sam Wills covered his mouth with duct tape and devised a new show. But he won't be on Mock the WeekA complaint often levelled at 21st-century standup is tha…
After years of shouting, comedian Sam Wills covered his mouth with duct tape and devised a new show. But he won't be on Mock the Week Continue reading...
Catholic comedian Frank Skinner wants standups to take on the so-called 'atheist establishment'. But does this even exist?Rejoice, rejoice! Rationalism is cool, credulousness is socially una…
Wembley Arena, London"Do you poop and scoop, Wembley?" Let it never be said that Alan Carr (pictured) aimed high with this, his first standup tour in four years. Carr knows his demographic "…
