Tim Harding's comedy diary

Reviewer Tim Harding gives a rundown of the comedy he's been watching in London and elsewhere in the last two weeks.

If I felt battered and exhausted following the conclusion of the Fringe (and I did), I can only imagine the strength of will it takes for comedians to turn up to their booked gigs at the summer’s final festivals. 

Nevertheless, a few steadfast Fringe escapees had made it to End of the Road festival in Dorset on the last weekend of August. As festivals go, End of the Road is a great place to see and perform comedy. The stage is off by itself in picturesque woodland, minimising noise bleed from the music stages; the audience sits in an amphitheatre of hay bales and the performers are backed by trees and rolling hills.

It’s a shame then, that the comedy offering felt a little underfunded this year. Each day had a block of just 90 minutes in the afternoon, followed by a shorter late-night set. After much more extensive programming in previous years, it felt like EOTR management had decided to invest more heavily in music and Q&A panels on the Talking Heads stage. Whether that decision paid off is not for me to say, but it felt like the comedy sessions were heavily oversubscribed compared to the other events on that stage.

With a line-up including Janine Harouni, Stewart Lee, Josie Long and Thaniya Moore, the name-recognition was certainly there, although (as Lee pointed out) the roster felt a little old-fashioned at times, in line with the festival’s demographic shift towards Gen X. A bit of character or clowning or sketch would have provided a nice variation. End Of The Road has such a great setup and a captive, hungover audience starving for comedy – give them something to get their teeth into!

Back in London, I’m beginning the process of catching up with the shows I missed in Edinburgh, and as a mark of respect, Amy Gledhill had to come first. 

Her award-winning show Make Me Look Fit On The Poster has acquired some connective tissue and thematic heft since I saw it in WIP earlier this year – additions which would certainly have played some part in winning her the prize, but is it rude to say I preferred the show when it was just a litany of goofball sex stories? 

Developing the emotional depth of her work is a good move at this stage in her career, but it was interesting that some of the funniest stories had a more muted impact this time out, necessarily now framed in this very Fringey way where it’s all building towards a serious point at the end. After a very hectic month-long run, her energy may have been flagging a bit, but she remains a dazzling performer, particularly in her masterful act-outs. Being winched by a groin rope at Go Ape is brought to life wonderfully.

Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life, the new show from Zoe Coombs Marr, is less successful. She’s best known for her character Dave, through which she parodies male comedians, but the best show I’ve seen from her was 2018’s intricate and playful Bossy Bottom, in which she played herself. So it’s not like she needs to be in character to make good stuff, and plenty of this new show works fine, but it’s rarely better than fine. 

Part of the conceit here is that Coombs Marr has made a spreadsheet of anecdotes and the audience can choose which ones to hear, which ensures the show is different every night but leads to a narrative arc that feels shapeless and marked by branching dead ends. I’m always intrigued by what ZCM has up her sleeve, but this was one of those experiments that’s more fun for the performer than it is for the audience.

Rosalie Minnitt’s Clementine, enjoying a reprise from last year, is much more focused, and heaving with jokes like a regency bosom. 

Minnitt plays the title character as a delusional, wacky mashup of Gen Z tropes with Bridgerton stylings, constantly in motion as she whirls around the stage throwing out props and bizarre asides, racing through a narrative sketch adventure about trying to find a husband before she becomes unmarriable on her 27^th birthday. 

It’s a star-making performance of extraordinary charisma and energy, taking Liz Kingsman’s One Woman Show into frenetic, Day-Glo territory. It’s easy to see why the show is still gaining momentum and audiences over a year after its debut.

Finally, I continued some furtive explorations into improv by seeing TJ and Dave at the Soho Theatre. These two Chicago veterans look like middle-aged management consultants but are often described as the masters of long-form improv. 

They don’t take suggestions from the audience, but instead simply come out and create a play on the spot, finding its shape as they go. I’ve heard reports that they can sometimes be outrageously funny and gag-heavy, more so than most scripted comedies, but it totally depends on what night you go. The show I saw took place at a family cookout and revolved around a father figure who was questioning his reasons for living after undergoing gastrointestinal surgery – it seemed to better fit a default mode of deeper themes explored through humorous, complex dialogue and rich characterisation.

It's different from normal improv in a few interesting ways. I was struck how, during the course of the play, details were added incidentally rather than dwelled upon. For example, a new character’s name might be mentioned in passing, but TJ and Dave are seasoned enough not to immediately leap on this bit of information and discover who that person is. That wouldn’t be naturalistic for characters who would presumably recognise the name. Instead, the information is put on the back burner and only becomes relevant much further down the line.

It’s really remarkably skilful to keep all of that in your head while trusting your improv partner to be on the same wavelength. Really, the whole process is designed for continuity rather than impact: most improv performers like nothing better than to jump into an ongoing scene with a huge joke that often has the side effect of stopping the show in its tracks. TJ and Dave meanwhile take the scenic route – every line patiently and organically builds on what’s gone before, creating a finely woven tapestry. The results have a certain kind of magic.

Published: 13 Sep 2024