Comedy news: Latest reviews

Latitude, Suffolk's annual music and arts extravaganza, kicked off last weekend with the kind of veritable feast that many arts lover’s have become accustomed to since its launch upon the festival scene five years ago. 

Establishing itself as one of the leading arts festivals in the UK, Latitude has made its name by providing what has been lacking at over festivals over the past couple of years, with separate but well positioned arenas for comedy, poetry, theatre, cabaret and literature as well as various smaller arts spaces around the festival site. 

Of course with choice comes the dilemma of what to see. There is such a plethora of acts that it is impossible to sample barely half of what is on offer. From improvised musicals to fairy tales told within a wood, 

Festival organisers chose a festival veteran to kick off proceedings at the comedy stage on Friday with Canadian comic Craig Campbell running though a number of his observational musings of being a Canadian living in the UK. 

From how the British are the most nonchalant race when it comes to personal safety to why you should respect a man who has a reputation for sexual relations with a moose. It was standard stock from Campbell but at least worthy enough to warm up the crowd for the weekend’s comedy line-up, which included none other than Ardal O’Hanlon, Rich Hall, Emo Philips, Tommy Tiernan and Phill Jupitus.

Our own personal highlights however were drawn from the comedy taking place on the Literary arena where many of the smaller acts are given a stage to cut their festival teeth. Robin Ince's bookclub has grown into some kind of Latitude Institution, bringing in dozens of acts to either provide small snippets of their acts or help improvise a new routine on the spot.

This year Ince has grown particularly fond of the books by Guy N Smith, who in the 1980s published a series of raunchy, sex-filled horror novels about giant crabs attempting to take over the world.

With the aid of an improvised orchestra, which included two sword players, backing vocals from Josie Long and Joanna Neary and visual effects by improviser Neil Edmund, Ince and fellow wordsmith Robin Hitchcock managed to recreate the Horror of the snapping to re-enact various scenes.

It might not have been comedy gold but seeing two-dozen performers in an ode to terrible prose at 1am was surreal enough to award marks for effort alone.

If anything though, Latitude 2010 was simply busier than previous years. Milling over the festival arena like ants, the sheer difference in numbers was enough to make some people recoil in horror – and they had a point. Organisers of the event had increased capacity to 35,000 this year and it is questionable whether the site could cope with it. 

Both Mark Thomas and Mark Watson had lines of festival-goers queuing up hoping to catch a glimpse of their performances in vain, while queues for food seemed to echo those seen on BBC docu-drama on inner-city soviet poverty.

However though the increasing popularity does have it’s negative sides, there is no doubt that Latitude at least endeavours to produce unique quality entertainment. I finished my weekend gazing over the site’s lake listening to the comic genius of Daniel Kitson and musician Gavin Osborn with their Stories for a Starlit Sky.

“Stories are best told in an enclosed quiet space with a small audience’ said Kitson as he looked around him at the thousands gathered to under a thankfully cloudless night to hear him read in the open air with the bass of the Cabaret tent coming from over the horizon.

In short Latitude provides a different festival experience which is enticing and eclectic. Worth a visit.

Such Small Portions jumped on an overnight sleeper train to a weekend at the Rockness Festival in Inverness – and found Howard Marks, Kevin Bridges and Blondie waiting.

I have just become the unwitting doorman to one poor girl’s chemically induced trip. Sarah, a blonde who was probably lovely if we had met under more normal circumstances, was scrabbling around on all fours looking for her shoes inside our tent, having mistaken it for her own - and she wasn’t leaving. “Honestly, she’s not with us,” we plead to the paramedics tailing her – and it’s true; we’d never seen her before.

God knows where she’d come from, but she could have done with some advice from Howard Marks, one of the world’s biggest proponents of illegal substance use and former drug smuggler who was performing at the Rockness Festival weekender, Inverness’s most famous export besides Nessie.

Outside the Howard’s End comedy tent – named after the man himself – Marks, smoking nothing stronger than a cigarette, gave us five minutes to talk festivals, some Eastern/Western philosophy behind his 1984 song Three Men in a Boat and, of course, illegal substances.

Anyone who has listened to the veteran poet will know that he is not one to mix his words. “Different states of consciousness are a good thing... Everybody should have the right to kill themselves,” he says, chuckling.

He’s telling us about why full legalisation of drugs is so important. His set, a humorous monologue into the dark heart of his much storied life, is full of such pontificating. So is there any drug that shouldn’t be legalised, we wonder? “None that I’ve done,” he says, “and I’ve done pretty much every drug there is.”

So there you have it.

Beside Marks, I could be excused for being a little apprehensive at the idea of heading to Rockness. Apart from the fact that it was the opening weekend of the World Cup, Inverness is also at the other side of the UK, and the festival’s name alone induces thoughts of two days spent limiting the injuries caused by a horde of hardcore Metal fans.

However Rockness is actually a much more sedate affair than the name suggests. Maybe it was Marks’ influence, maybe it is the frankly stunning setting of Loch Ness behind the main stage, but the festival had a friendly but vivacious vibe which would make it included as one of the friendlier of the summer festivals south of the Scottish border.

Despite the distance Rockness is easier to get to than expected. Departing Euston on the Caledonian Express after a quick pint post-work, before long you find yourself waking up to the snow-capped peaks (yes, there’s still snow even as we come up to the summer solstice) of the Cairn Gorms National Park with a cup of tea. We've never arrived at a festival feeling like a 19th century explorer before but could get used to it.

Though comedy only made up a small part of the weekend’s line-up, Howard’s End did provide some comedy highlights, with Rob Heeney and Tiernan Douieb swapping MC duties on the Saturday and Sunday, Heeney - who at 39 was experiencing his first festival - quickly worked out the average festival-goers psyche and dropped his normal set to simply shout abuse at anyone in the crowd who caught his eye.

While it isn't pretty it worked, they lapped up the insults with glee and were even happier to have their ears blasted by Marty McClean – who could be Canada’s angriest comedian.

After a brief sketch explaining why it is ridiculous to expect anyone to use ‘reasonable’ force when confronted with a burglar McClean decided to bait the audience by insulting one of Scotland's most famous new comedians, Kevin Bridges. “Fucking Kevin Bridges,” he shouts, risking the mirth of every Scot present. “Oh, so I make one fucking reference to your golden boy and you’re fucking mad. Kevin’s a comic; he can take a joke. Fuck off, I’ve already arranged that him and me are going to drink and do drugs all fucking night tonight.”

There is no doubt that Bridges is Scottish comedy's new hot property. Managing to sell out Glasgow’s SECC Arena just over a week before his Rockness gig his set in the Clash tent was so busy people twenty yards outside leapfrogged each other to get a view of the 23-year-old, who, having started on the stand-up circuit at 17, is probably comedy’s youngest veteran.

Surprisingly, and despite performances on Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow and BBC Radio 5 Live’s Fighting Talk, Bridges isn’t a household name outside of Scotland. But with his quick-witted Glaswegian charm it is almost certain that we will be hearing more of him in coming years.

Other memorable Rockness moments included the ABE (Anyone But England) brigade delighted by the drivel England produced in the one-all World Cup draw with the USA, and an excellent set from comedy rap troupe Abandoman.

Abandoman, aka MC Rob Broderick and guitarist/singer James Hancox, or "Ireland’s seventh-most popular Hip-Hop act," - treated an up-for-it early afternoon audience to a highly amusing, high octane set. Tracks included interactive freestyle What’s in Your Pocket – which sees Broderick freestyling about the Tampons, iPhones and passports offered up by the audience – and an ode to a gardener called Dave – a man’s whose dream is a bore a hole through the core of the Earth to Australia. “You weren’t great at geography, were you,” Broderick quipped.

The last thing we were to witness from our first venture to Rockness was standing at the top of hill that opens up a stunning panoramic view of the Loch, where we caught Blondie rocking a crowd soaked by multiple downpours but euphoric on Eighties mega-stardom. Sadly, London called and we were dragged away from a chorus of Heart of Glass, latterly missing Vampire Weekend and The Strokes.

Rockness is not the biggest festival out there, nor does it boast the highest profile comic line-up, but Rockness 2010 the eclectic mix of pro-drug ranting and veteran musical gems culminated in a great weekend. One to check out next year, (Howard) mark our words.

More often than not the roots of great comedy can be found in tragedy. The inner anguish of a comedian’s mind is full of thoughts and memories which, upon occasion, are spilled out in humorous form all in the name of entertainment.

So when some of the finest comedians from the UK and beyond gathered at the Lyceum on the Strand on Monday night for Reprieve’s Laughter / Pain charity fundraiser, it had a poignant touch.

No less than, Ed Byrne, Shappi Khorsandi, Robin Ince, Phill Jupitus, Isy Suttie, Andy Zaltzman, Kevin Eldon, Stewart Lee, and Tim Minchin were billed to provide a night of star-studded entertainment hosted by Reprieve chief Charles Starmer Smith himself and comedian Alistair Barrie. Each act was barely given more than a few minutes of stage time, but nethertheless most managed to find some sort of personal torture to share with their audience.

Byrne, who was the first to take to the stage, focussed mainly his new domestic nemesis – a cat, which his wife has adopted after finding it rifling through their bins. Though observations such as how his new pet has failed to live up to it’s vermin-catching capabilities were not that original, they were delivered in the style which has led Byrne to become one of the best live comedians in the past decade.

Robin Ince really took the idea of torture to heart. Arriving in what he described as a ‘good mood’ Ince first apologised in advance just in case he wasn’t able to deliver his usual style of rant-inspired comedy. 

In the end though the apology wasn’t needed. All it took as the mental image of a hundred or so geeks queuing for an iPad on the same week that Sex and The City 2 was released to make Ince curl up in loathing; venting his spleen over the tech porn for geeks, forgetting how long he’d been on, and realising that “It didn’t take long to get warmed up at all did it?’ and contradicting himself by saying: “I’m sorry I wanted to be happy tonight but I’m angry.”

Next up was Isy Suttie who endeared herself to the crowd with a vocally dexterous version of Amy Winehouse singing Rehab while stuck down a well in Kennington Park before moving on to her own personal version of torture; the home furnishing department of Ikea.

Phill Jupitus’ own personal problems include some fatherhood trouble. Like Byrne, Jupitus has also had to contend with a new arrival to his household. However unlike Byrne, it isn’t a feline snooping around his bin, it’s his daughters’ boyfriend claiming territorial rights to his fridge – albeit with some cheap lidl lager. 

Though he started his short set looking like he’d walked through a wrong door, Jupitus soon built a steady momentum: “We’re all complicit in this ridiculous charade and I know he’s fucking my daughter, and now I have to contend with generic lager in my fridge. My Fridge. I own a Prosecco worth £80 for fuck’s sake.” 

The half ended with Jupitus with a unique way to allude to torture, bringing on the all-girl cabaret Trio The La Di Da’s to sing a version of Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick (rather than a real one we assume). 

Other performers of note included Andy Zaltzman, who aimed in his brief slot to solve the world’s problems and came closest to providing a genuine dialogue about terrorism in his set and Shappi Khorsandi was put in a good performance despite being put off from the start when the audience sang happy birthday to her.

Kevin Eldon also made a rare live appearance with two songs about bullying and respect, and how music can be used for torture, even if it is a skipping CD is bad enough. 

However the two heavy weight acts of the evening were saved until last. As one of the finest racounters in the world Stewart Lee’s ability to take a subject - let’s say moving to the countryside - and deride it to such lengths that it almost becomes an art form in itself. And it so well delivered that, if he wasn’t on stage, would probably get him sectioned.

Ripping into the dull lives of his friends who have decided to up sticks and move out of Hackney, Lee highlights the desperate pawing for attention they crave when they realise that living in Stoke-Ham-by-Bow is actually very dull and none of their friend want to visit. 

Lee isn’t a fan of emigrants either, turning the usual prejudiced calls around to ask for a cap on how many people should be allowed to leave the country rather than move in, Lee concluded his set by repeating the word prawns for so long even he couldn’t take it seriously.

By the time Minchin came one for the finale the crowd had obviously had their comedy appetite sated and were looking for entertainment, almost heckling in anticipation. 

The odd quips from the auditorium even had Minchin saying, ‘I’m not having a good night Shappi, it feels like a huge Jongleurs’, before settling down to provide the Lyceum with versions of ‘Only a ginger can call another ginger ginger’ and ‘If I didn’t have you’ as well as new piece chastising the Pope with a song which – if it wasn’t for it’s crude lyrics – was almost childishly innocent enough in tone and structure to lure many an Irish vicar.

Minchin has become so big now that he can probably even afford to hire a roady to bring on the fan he uses during his finale instead of crouching down mid-set to find the plug, ( He won’t, we asked).

All in all Laughter / Pain lived up to the billing by providing hours of top notch entertainment  - any more and it would have felt like torture.

Tim Clark

With his new film Four Lions set to head to the cinema, Chris Morris will thankfully be making a return to the British comedy scene. To find out more about the man who inspired some of the UK’s best comedy of the last decade, SSP writer Ellie Broughton delves into a recent biography penned by Lucian Randall.

Chris Morris's biographer, Lucian Randall, enjoys a rare privilege: he has interviewed the Brass Eye comic, face to face. Only once, mind.

“We had a long chat about the book,” says Randall, “but after that meeting, it was just emails.” After the chat, Randall explains, he compiled the biography through interviews with Morris's friends, family and colleagues and corresponded with Morris by emails to confirm the shakier facts of the case. Randall excuses his subject, saying he understands fully that this is just part of the act. Because of and in spite of this 'act', the reader can take a comprehensive entertaining dip into the world of Britain's best living satirist.

The story starts with On the Hour in 1991. Armando Iannucci gathered together Britain's young favourites - Steve Coogan, Doon Mackichan, Patrick Marber and Rebecca Front – and gave Morris his first stand-out show.  He had always worked in radio and has his own show on Greater London Radio when On the Hour started. But once the team started to roll out the mock news, it was only a matter of time before the format was hijacked for TV screens.

Morris fronted one series of The Day Today before Brass Eye kicked off on Channel Four. It broke the broadcasting code on several counts, enraged the tabloids and wowed a generation. And it's just as brilliant in retrospect. The footage of Morris harassing London drug dealers for 'clarky cat' is still as funny for the miaow-miaow generation as it was at the time.

You'd have to be a serious Morris anorak not to find some new fact in the book. For instance, the fact that the paedophile they interviewed for the 2001 special was, in fact, a paedophile, or that Morris is scared of the dark.

As for the authenticity and originality of the work – Randall never fails to impress. My only criticism is the objectivity with which he deals with his subject. The book never rambles and he keeps his opinions to himself. This is Randall's second biography, as he has already written about Vivian Stanshaw, and it's clear that he is not interested in competing with his subjects in the comedy stakes. Rather, it's Randall's eye for detail that shines, as well as the quality of the interviews he has collected.

Friends and colleagues have long collaborated with Morris's act – like the time Steve Yabsley told the papers he had an addiction to garlic, and once cooked a chicken with twenty cloves. Or the time Roy Roberts claimed that he filled a Bristol radio studio with helium. The absence of Morris's authoritative voice leaves rooms for the legend to sprawl.

Disgusting Bliss has got every Morris moment you could want to read about, including all the green room stories. And the writer says that it even has the official Morris nod: “When I sent him the finished book, he didn't say a thing about it.”

'Disgusting Bliss: The Brass Eye of Chris Morris' by Lucian Randall (£12.99, Simon & Schuster)

“Counting Coup on the British One Laugh at a Time “

“…was very funny, I did like him, he made me laugh and I hope to see more from him in the future.” – Remote Goat

Before I review Star Wars Episode -1: I Love You So Much Giving Me Blow Jobs Obi One Kanobi I must tell all you peoples I am loving so much how much I am also loving a gay man comedy movies so that you are not thinking I am racist against a gay man comedy movies. This cant not be farther from a truths.

Some of my many favorite comedy movies are gay man comedy movies likeLeathal Weapons and Rush Hours and The HangOvers and Cop and a Half. So now you no I am no racist against a gay man comedy movies before i write what I am to write.

Star Wars Episode -1: I Love You So Much Giving Me Blow Jobs Obi One Kanobi is a George Lucas new movie that is an other PreQuil to all the Star Wars movies. They do not say it is a George Lucas Star Wars movies but you no because it is about gays and it have Obi One Kanobi before he grow a beard and move to Mars.

In a future before all a Star Wars movies happen Obi One Kanobi has a name Phillip Morris and he live on Earth. 

But we dont not no this yet. First in a beginning of this movie we meet Ace Ventura and he is married to a woman and have a daughter and now instead of having sex with animals he have sex with men like he has a name Tom Cruise. Then he get in a car accident and goes to a hospital and leave his wife and kid and have so much sex with men all of a time and get a little dogs and bys so many gay things to get so many blow jobs. Soon he cannot by so many things so he has to sue so many people to get money and then these people are like "fuck you you go to jail now." 

And he say "YES!" because he has seen A Prophets and wants so much a rich gay Muslims boyfriend to talk about deer with. But instead of a rich gay Muslims boyfriend he get a Obi One Kanobi instead and he gives so many good blow jobs so he is like "I love you so much giving me blow jobs Obi One Kanobi that I am only going to get them from you from now on." This is so awesome because I love when movies say a title of a movie in a dialogues.

Then Obi One loves giving blow jobs so much so he is like "YES!"

Then Ace Ventura get a job at a company and play so much golf and go to jail and break out and then Obi One go back to jail and then Ace Ventura dies of AIDS and then he is Obi One Kanobi lawyer and then he go back to jail and then Obi One get out and say "Fuck you Ace Ventura" and grows a beard and moves to Mars and falls in love with Darth Vader. The End.

This is definitly a #4 best Star Wars movie and if you love to see so much men leave a wife and kid and have so much ass raping and blow jobs from men and go to jail and jail is so hilarious like in real life then you should go to see this movie and also you should go to a Alice in a Pile of Shit 3-D and kill yourself because that is what I am wanting to do after seeing these two movies. Where is Iron Man 2-D 3-D?

Well I would give it 5 stars wouldn't I! Here's the Spoonfed review below: 

Musical Comedy Awards 2010
Copyright Mike Stephenson 

Less than a week into Leicester’s 17-day comedy marathon, one thing is clear: this is no standard, meat and two veg, standup-in-the-backroom-of-a-pub type of festival.

The opening weekend alone offered a cabaret show; a burlesque party with live poetry readings, pole dancing, music and comedy skits; interactive animation beamed from a giant screen in the city’s shopping district; a concert by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain; and a “charity shop DJ” event at the YMCA, where comedians took to the decks.

I kicked off on Friday with what was, in form, conventional comedy from the charming 26-year-old Tom Allen, in a bar underneath the Belmont hotel. But Allen, for all his skill, is no conventional comedian—berating audience is not his thing, for one. And he deftly avoided the clichés that have become so overused in comedy of late—poking fun at the boy scouts not because they are run by paedophiles (as a far too many would-be “funny” men tend to), but because “they prepare 7-year-old's for war.”

This is something he could never get into, he told us, because “he has the wrong shoulders for it.” His show, dedicated to all the women he has ever loved (but not in that way) was gently camp, warm and natural—and as his confidence builds he’ll definitely be one to watch.

Then, for something entirely different, I moved on to the cabaret show “The Crack,” which featuring sword-swallowers, ventriloquists, acrobats and musicians

For a rundown of why this is one of the most exciting things about live comedy in Britain today, read my review in the forthcoming issue of Prospect magazine, published on 25th February.

I finished the night at Imaginarium at the City Rooms: the official opening party of the festival. The event will be repeated on Friday 19th February to close the festival, and is well worth a punt—whether or not poetry, amateur pole dancing or a team of doctors doing short comedy skits is your thing.

The following day served up another feast of (quite diverse) experiences. Leicester’s De Monfort University hosted an all-day symposium on comedy and performance, in which performers and academics from across Britain discussed comedy in performance—from stand-up to music hall, from playwriting to sketch shows, from slapstick to satire. The aim was to explore and develop “critical and creative analyses of comedy in, and as, performance: at what cost, comedy?”

While that may well sound too highfalutin for some, there was plenty of actual performance going on elsewhere. From noon until 3pm, live and interactive animation was beamed from a giant screen in the heart of the city’s shopping district. Titled “Hand From Above,” the animation, a creation of artist Chris O’Shea, appeared to pick­ up members of the public like tiny toys, tick­ling them around or squash­ing them. As one might expect, people were astonished, freaked out and delighted in equal measure.

After that, it was back to more traditional sketch comedy in the shape of “Broken Holmes”—a four-player sketch show starring an opium-addled Sherlock Holmes and his faithful, lovesick servant Dr Watson. The concept was a potentially brilliant one, but the performance itself was embarrassingly thin—all the players were in bad need of acting lessons and the whole show, conceptually, failed to grasp the meaning of the word “farce.”

This appeared like a case—all too frequent in sketch comedy—of perfectly competent writers believing that they can perform their own material. If so, the firm lesson should be: stick to the writing. Above all, I was left wondering what kind of opium makes someone behave like a deranged crackhead, as this Sherlock Holmes did?

Rob Rouse at Firebug that evening, by contrast, was a consummate pleasure. While horny family pets, religion, awkward in-laws and fatherhood are all familiar comic territory, they are rarely accompanied by a (rather touching) slideshow, nor are all comics quite so adept at ad-libbing in response to the audience.

The show was expertly structured and his delivery was well-judged, but it was perhaps most intriguing during the unscripted moments. Rouse will next be appearing at the Glasgow comedy festival on 24th March.

If you’re sorry to have missed any of that, you should be. But don’t despair. In addition to more charity shop DJs and another Imaginarium bash at the City Rooms, still to come are, to name a few: Jon Richardson, John Bishop, more from Tom Allen, Paul Sinha and many more. Well worth a visit, in this humble reviewer’s opinion.

Mary Fitzgerald

Roffle. It sounds suspiciously like a new Cadbury’s bar designed by Kraft to subdue us into thinking the that the confectionary mega-monster is a ‘friendly giant’. Luckily for us all the Roffle Club is actually a comedy new night hosted by stand-up / sketch duo Max and Ivan.

Based in Camden’s Proud Galleries – the most tenuous link to an actual gallery space I’ve ever seen – the is a new night aims to give the audience a smorgasboard of quality acts from across the comedy spectrum.

Over the course of 2010 The Roffle Club is poised to bring some of the finest cabaret, musical, and straight stand-up comedy acts to London’s premier alternative music spot and on first look the opening bill is of exceptional quality.

Headlined by pop duo Frisky And Mannish and including up-and-coming sketch troupes Clever Peter and Delete The BanjaX as well as French comedian Marcel Lucont, Roffle Club it certainly had an astutely eclectic feel to it. The mix of different styles also worked well in a room which you wouldn’t usually think could host comedy.

Highlights included an excellent skit about the Mario Bros from Max and Ivan as well as host of well thought out pieces from Delete the BanjaX, who are possibly the ones to watch on the comedy sketch circuit. The night belonged to Frisky and Mannish however, who managed to close with some new songs and some material from their School of Pop fringe show.

Of course for a first night not everything went to plan and, as the audience filed out to dash for the last tube there was a feeling that the night went on only slightly too long, but if The Roffle Club can keep up the same kind of tempo then it is certain to establish itself as a firm favourite on the London comedy circuit for both audience and acts alike.

SSP dusted off it’s SLR and headed down to capture some live shots of the night. See the gallery on Alex Brenner’s profile here: http://www.suchsmallportions.com/pg/photos/album/1653/the-roffle-club-proud-camden-jan-2010-12

What can you say about Jeff Dunham that someone, somewhere, has not already said? The U.S comic is an Internet phenomenon. According to some estimates over 300million people have tuned into his various U-tube clips (which also ranks them the 8th most watched of all time) while the reams of viewer’s comments could give War and Peace a run for it's money.

Yet for such an internationally recognised ventriloquist Jeff Dunham is little known in the UK. He rarely ventures overseas so this, his first UK gig - a one-night-only appearance at the Hammersmirh Apollo - is a treat.

For anyone unused to his comedy, Dunham uses a range of characters from Walter, a cantankerous old man to Achmed, a failed suicide bomber to run through a series of sketches on comtemporary life.

Dunham started well enough, with a good quip about landing himself in hot water at an airbase when their flight was redirected but as the puppets came out something began to take hold. The jokes were coming at the same pace but I found my laughter waning. There was something in Dunham’s set which simply didn’t sit right.

A dig at the French here, some contrived material about marriage there, more monotonous material which materialises women, and so it went. The more I listened the more I became enthralled. How long would Dunham go on taking the same line?

I was hoping to find a hint of irony in the jokes but none materialised; which was when the realisation came. This wasn’t comedy it was simply crass.

For more than one of Dunham’s characters the wife, or simply any female, became the butt of the jokes. There was no equality in the humour, no self-criticism which accompanies a lot of the better gender comedy. This is a real shame as Dunham is obviously able to deliver some excellent comedy and there were some good jokes, but they were lost in the ether of misogynist commentary.

And it wasn’t just sexism, Dunham seems ready to use ventriloquism as a conduit to insult any race, religion, nationality, or social type except, of course, the ‘White Caucasian Male’, which brings me to his Achmed character.

For a long time comedians were too worried to breach the 9/11 taboo and Dunham does provide a voice for that, which is good. But to use ventriloquism as an excuse to be prejudiced is poor. The idea that his character Achmed the suicide bomber is not a Muslim because he has ‘Made in China’ printed on his arse is utter nonsense. The genesis of the whole sketch can be viewed as a cultural reaction to 9/11 – which, as the inspiration Achmed, was a watershed moment for Dunham’s own career.

But Achmed is part of, not a response to America's war on terror. The character isn't funny per se, he's a fall guy for jokes on Osama Bin Laden made popular by his tell-tale quip “I’ll Kiiill You”.

While any attempt to ridicule fanatical religion should be encouraged, it feels that Dunham's helps to belittle the whole Islamic culture. It is cheap comedy that appeals to the America which is intent on looking outward to explain it's problems, rather than judging itself.

A similar kind of humour works on South Park, but only because the whole point is that Trey Parker provides a much cleverer critique of U.S mainstream culture, a counterbalance to the overzealous Neo-con conservatism which would sooner see the wife chained to the sink.

I am not against the use of characters to push the boundaries of comedy or say very controversial things, far from it. Comedy is a vitally important part of social criticism, but if a comedian is prepared to take this route his work has to be of an exceptionally high standard, otherwise all the comedian achieves is to cement social stereotypes in an audience’s mind and his work can be used for the wrong purposes.

Bernard Manning is an example to every comedian. Sure, the comedian may be the nicest man on earth, but if his comedy is bigoted and misogynist then what is the point? The joke ceases to become a joke, it becomes a vent with which to spread intolerance in the public sphere.

To be fair the audience loved it, but it was an overwhelmingly American audience which was convinced of Dunham's genius before he stepped foot onstage, while the laughs came with the same zealous enthusiasm and racuous applause last seen at the Nuremburg Rallies.

The UK either isn't ready for the macho chauvinistic jokes or, more likely, we moved on a long time ago.

Tim Clark

(Original review was posted on April 11, 2009)