Bruce Dessau's titter feed: this week's comedy news (Mon Feb 24)

Comedy critic Bruce Dessau on the latest gigs, gags and gaffes from the world of comedy
Katherine Leedale
24 February 2014

Rubberbandits follow the Bard

The Royal Shakespeare Company has already played host to stand-ups in Stratford, now Shakepeare’s Globe is getting in on the act. Rubberbandits, the repellent but lovable hip-hop duo from Limerick who wear customised plastic bags over their heads by way of jokey reference to the IRA balaclava, have announced two dates at the theatre’s new Sam Wanamaker Playhouse space, on March 30 and 31. The Globe’s artistic director, Dominic Dromgoole, turns out to be an unlikely fan, finding their spiky, spoofy music videos on YouTube — “I fell in love with them through the internet. I love Horse Outside, Spastic Hawk, Black Man in My Gang.” The learned gent also thinks that Shakespeare would have approved: “Some people think of Elizabethan comedy as hey nonny nonny, but it was actually much edgier — comedians liked a song and dance then too.”

Nab a ticket at shakespearesglobe.com

Single White Slut undressed

Tim Key prides himself on being unpredictable but even he didn’t predict this. His new show, Single White Slut, opens at Soho Theatre this evening, but because his late-night slot follows on from a performance of a play, The One, on the same stage there is not enough turnaround time to remove their scenery and install all of Key’s props. Details of his new set are under wraps but his last show, Masterslut, featured a bath onstage, which he jumped into — clothed, he’s an oddball not an exhibitionist — bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase “immersive comedy”. Key’s people are promising a “better spectacle” from his next run, at Dalston’s Arcola.

Freedom for Fubar

With post-Sachsgate mainstream radio still tightly policed, there is room for the UK’s first uncensored, subscription online network. Open-minded as the recently launched Fubar Radio (fubarradio.com) claims to be, the station even so opts for a politer, printable acronym of its name, which in military slang stands for “f**ked up beyond all reason”. Among those signed up as joke jockeys are seasoned podcasters Richard Herring, Carl Donnelly and Chris Martin (not the one from Coldplay). Look out for Vikki Stone, who hosts a Friday night chat show which she says is “like Woman’s Hour but not as dry and aimed at men as well as women”. The freedom of the no-holds-barred policy is particularly appealing. “I’ve done a lot of BBC pilots but whenever I’ve done radio you have to think before you speak.” Let’s hope she doesn’t give that up altogether.

Jack Whitehall one, Stewart Lee two

When is a warm-up not a warm-up? On Saturday night Jack Whitehall played a sold-out preview show. Not in a shoebox fringe theatre for a fiver as stand-ups usually do when they’re trying out new material — as Whitehall has done in the past. This was in front of 4,000 people at Hammersmith’s Eventim Apollo with tickets at £19 a pop plus booking fees. That might be a lot cheaper than Whitehall’s wallet-bashing £32.50 O2 Arena gig in March, but compare and contrast with Stewart Lee’s next run of work-in-progress shows at Soho Theatre in June which are £9.45. By my reckoning, that means two Lees almost exactly equal one Whitehall.

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