Away We Go and Crazy, Stupid, Love - superior romcoms

I love a romcom as much as the next person, but it's been a real pleasure to see two particularly brilliant ones over the last couple weeks. First up was Away We Go, a film that raised a small ripple of appreciation when it was released, but has probably found its indie, put-a-bird-on-it audience, me included, on DVD/Blu-ray.

Unflashily directed by Sam Mendes and starring The American Office's John Krasinski and Bridesmaids' Maya Rudolph, it follows a couple as they travel across the States, trying to find the best place to bring up their unborn child. And it's lovely. Actually not as twee as I'd expected, there are some big laughs here, but importantly you just enjoy spending time with this charming and very grounded couple. Perfectly cast and with some surprisingly lyrical passages of dialogue, it's a little gem.

With Steve Carell (The Office again, of course), Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone on board, Crazy, Stupid, Love got rather more attention in cinemas, but the Portlandia set shouldn't dismiss it on that account.

Carell plays Cal, a once-happily married man who finds himself being coached in picking up women by the super-smooth Jacob (Gosling) when his wife tells him she wants a divorce. Along the way we also learn about the lives and messed-up loves of Cal's kids and even Jacob himself, as lessons are learned and soulmates united.

Ok, so the fact that Jacob's alpha male posturing apparently works on every single woman he meets rankles a little, but in the main this is a hugely likeable and big-hearted film with a neat twist. The performances are what really make it - but then that's exactly what we've come to expect from the likes of Carell and Stone. Great fun.

The Muppets - Dork Adore review

"The Muppets mean a lot to me. I watched The Great Muppet Caper over and over as a kid, and when I was 11 I wrote a piece about myself in which I said I don’t watch much TV (how things change) but that I always made time for Shooting Stars and Muppets Tonight (ok, maybe they don’t change so much…)"

I totally reviewed The Muppets for Dork Adore. Check it out here...

Sex With A Stranger - Trafalgar Studios

Anyone who’s seen more than a few token minutes of the above-par BBC Three sitcom Him and Her will probably have picked up at least two things: writer Stefan Golaszewski has an impeccable ear for dialogue; and Russell Tovey is your go-to guy for a slubby everyman. Oh, and perhaps one extra thing – Tovey clearly relishes and excels at delivering Golaszewski’s uber-naturalistic lines.

It’s no surprise, then, that this pairing works just as well on stage; Sex with a Stranger is 80 minutes of slow-burn but high-laugh-rate comedy that gets as many laughs from the uncomfortable silences as the gags. Tovey stars in the three-hander along with Jaime Winstone – these two being the strangers in question – and Naomi Sheldon as Adam’s (Tovey) long-suffering and highly-strung girlfriend Ruth.

We only meet Ruth about half way through the play, however, the first 40 minutes or so revealing how Adam and Grace (Winstone) meet on a night out, and head off back to Grace’s flat via a long and rather awkward bus and cab ride filled with circular, gossamer-light conversations about how great the club was, and that living five minutes from Homebase must be ‘handy’.  

It may be brand new and, probably, never to be revisited, but it’s actually quite a sweet relationship and it provides the majority of the humour – Winstone is hugely likable and very funny as the down-to-earth, giggly Grace. It’s only when we start to get drip-fed information about Adam’s ‘real’ life back home that things start to turn from amusingly clumsy, to distinctly uneasy.

The first real action we see from Ruth is a good five minutes spent meticulously ironing a shirt – the very shirt, of course, that Adam wears on his night with Grace. It’s an uncomfortably long period of time to watch someone completing a domestic chore (there were stifled laughs in the audience, and one man gave her a brief ironic round of applause when she finished) but that is of course the point. We need to see the care and attention that Ruth has put into ironing the shirt for us to start reassessing how we feel about the affable Adam.

After this scene we’re all set up to be on Ruth’s side, but as we’re taken back through the history of their relationship – from meeting at uni to tortuous discussions about whether to get some new bookshelves – we start to detect a few, shall we say ‘issues’ on Ruth’s behalf that complicate things a little. She’s clingy, paranoid and, to be honest, quite dull, but then dullness is no excuse for infidelity, and she clearly has a lot to be paranoid about.

Ultimately there is no big revelation or showdown, so the ending feels pretty flat, but there’s no doubt that Sex With A Stranger is a beautifully written and impressively acted play in which the little details of genuinely real conversation are the real star. 

Swallows and Amazons - Vaudeville Theatre

At various points in the past, I have said that four of my favourite performers - Ben Folds, Tim Minchin, Neil Hannon and Rufus Wainwright - should all have a pop at writing a musical.

Wainwright, true to diva form, jumped straight to opera instead, and Folds is too busy having a big old telly career at the moment to concern himself with the stage. But Minchin and Hannon have both followed my sage advice (it may not *all* have been down to me, admittedly) and while the former has a runaway hit on his hands with the superb Matilda, Hannon has quietly busied himself with putting some delightful songs to director Tom Morris's (War Horse) version of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons.

Despite being from Northern Ireland, Hannon does "quintessentially English" remarkably well. We saw that with the brilliant cricket concept album Duckworth Lewis Method (still waiting for you to perform live together again, guys) and here he has provided a charming, decidedly middle-England-tinged score and songs for this story of imagination and adventure. This isn't a fully-fledged jazz-hands musical, but then that wouldn't suit this production, which has a simple, hand-made feel - the band also act as stage-hands, using whatever happens to be lying around as props and scenery. Just like kids do.

And much as I love Hannon's songs, it really is the innovative, make-do-and-mend staging that makes this production such a joy. The first half errs on the slow side - the youngest members of the audience perhaps understandably got a little restless as we reached the 70 minute mark - but the second is a delight. We are increasingly drawn further into the children's games, and particularly the creative Titty's pirate stories, and at times are actually invited to get involved. It takes a little time to get going, but it's easily more than worth it for the moments of magic to be found in the second half. 

School Night - New Red Lion Theatre

School Night - a new monthly comedy night at the home of #ACMS - has a great idea at its heart, and easily lives up to the potential, with warmth, intelligence and humour to spare. Comedians are invited to perform a set based around their own specialist subject, and, keeping to the theme, there's a tuck shop during the interval offering Double Dips and Rainbow Drops. Education, laughs and, as MC Matthew Crosby (Pappy's) pointed out, a sugar high the likes of which most of the audience hadn't experienced in over a decade. What's not to like?

Nothing, it turns out. The first gig was one of the most entertaining 'mixed-bill' nights of comedy I've been to in ages, and that's thanks in no small part to Crosby who, as a former teacher himself, had some fantastic stories to tell - including responding to a wayward football in the belly with verbal and physical violence in front of an entire Year 7 class.

Steve Pretty gave us a taster of his evolution-of-music Edinburgh show Origin of the Pieces, while the Festival of the Spoken Nerd triumverate Helen Arney (PSHE), Steve Mould (Science) and Matt Parker (maths) were all in their respective elements - I particularly loved Mould's hilarious take on shapes of constant width. But perhaps best of all was seeing Penny Dreadfuls member/alumnus Humphrey Ker fight through illness to bounce around the stage, fizzing with excitement at the chance to deliver his own potted history of Britain 1066-2000. Funny, fascinating and, ultimately, very touching, it was something quite special to witness, actually.

Sam Simmons - Meanwhile, Soho Theatre

Since hearing such great things about his Edinburgh show, and watching this properly fascinating, insightful ComComedy interview, it's fair to say I've been pretty excited about the prospect of seeing Australian comic Sam Simmons.

Meanwhile, currently playing at the Soho Theatre, appears to be a mission on Simmons's part to give his audience licence to laugh at the silliest and most surreal things possible - and to feel ok about it. Pine cones dressed up as cowboys, the inherent evilness of ducks, a talking lama, Good King Wenceslas sung to the Star Wars Cantina Band tune - this is joyous, inspired and weird stuff and I loved it.

Some comedy is about shared recognition of the familiar, but Simmons tends to go down the Reeves and Mortimer route of drawing laughs from something genuinely surprising and odd and fun. And the fact that this mixture of child-like silliness and wanking jokes comes with a message attached only makes the show even more appealing to those of us who think that comedy can be the perfect tool with which to say the most important things.

There are so many rules these days, Simmons says in a "I'm mad as hell" finale, that we've lost all innocence and fun, and that's what I reckon he's trying to recreate here - both generally with the whole ethos of the show, and specifically with his show-closing attempt to evoke childhood memories through smashing the Old El Paso taco shells that he used to eat as a kid on his chest. "Confronting" he says, in a Tony Law-style moment of ironic commentary.

In fact, like Law, much of the show is a little trip into Sam Simmons's head, though it's hard to work out whether we should believe what we find there. Does he genuinely not think it's going well tonight, or does saying that just help back up the inner-monologue recordings that reveal Simmons's worries that he's "one step up from a juggler"?

If this all comes across as rather measured, that's only because over-analysing comedy is a favourite past-time of mine, and Simmons's show just begs to be unpacked. But rest assured, the most significant thing about Meanwhile is that it's laugh out loud, heart-warmingly funny. High expectations can be dangerous, sure, but not to be feared in the case of Simmons who, it transpires, is just as funny, inventive and smart as everyone has told me - if slightly more wild-eyed and combative. In a fabulous way.

The Ladykillers, Gielgud Theatre

A West End play, based on a classic comedy film, written by Graham "Father Ted and Ralph" Linehan and starring two hugely talented comedy actors Ben Miller and Peter Capaldi. There was always a chance I'd like the new stage adaptation of The Ladykillers, and like it I did.

There have been reviews which say that the staging is the real star of this production, and while that's to overstate things a little, there's no doubting that it's really ruddy good. All of the action takes place in and around sweet old Mrs Wilberforce's house in Kings Cross, which fills the stage, twists to reveal new rooms, leans precariously and shakes violently when a train goes by - sending tables and chairs sliding magically across the floor.

[Spoilers] With the entire criminal gang that stays in this rickety old house to bump off along the way, there's a lot of "stage business" like this throughout the play, and while it is occasionally a little clunky, most of it is inventive, fun and genuinely surprising. Wide-boy Harry (Stephen Wright) gets a bannister spindle through the stomach, One-Round (Clive Rowe) receives a fatal head wound from a cake knife and Eastern European, old-lady-hating Louis (Miller) is dispatched out the window after accidentally stabbing himself. All of this is achieved with real panache, but also all topped, I'm afraid, by a stunning visual gag involving the gang squeezing themselves into a tiny cupboard.

As for the writing, it's a curious mix of broad-as-you-like humour and really quite subtle throwaway lines. Some of the jokes are real groaners, but the running gags all have neat pay-offs and there's something approaching poetry in Professor's (Capaldi) grand speeches. It's perfectly cast - Capaldi is a Lithgow-esque ball of frustration and self-delusion, Miller is delightfully grumpy - and, like the deceptively dumb One-Round, this production may not wear its smarts on its sleeve, but it has them in bucketloads.

The Joy of Sketch, Lyric Theatre

Sketch comedy is going through a bit of a lean old time on mainstream TV at moment. Messers Mitchell, Webb, Armstrong and Miller are all doing their own thing, and while it's been great to see pilots from Anna and Katy and Totally Tom, it's all very hit and miss* - and very rarely seen on the flagship channels. And as such, the nominations for the Sketch Show award at last night's British Comedy Awards were pretty uninspired - I'm delighted Horrible Histories won, and This Is Jinsy looks fun (I don't have Sky Atlantic...) but Come Fly With Me and a one-off Ronnie Corbett special? Hmm.

But on the stage, sketch groups are doing rather nicely thank you very much, and - as this new show presented by Time Out and the Pleasance at the Lyric Theatre - showed, what's particularly pleasing is that the genre is such a broad church at the moment.

First up were The Penny Dreadfuls, the Edinburgh Fringe darlings who have said once or twice over the past year that they won't be performing together again... thank goodness they're such damned liars, then, because it'd be awful for them to go their separate ways permanently. Back in Victorian attire, Thom Tuck, David Reed and Humphrey Ker showed that it's easy to find the perfect balance between fine writing and awesome improv. If you happen to be ridiculously talented.


Five-man Late Night Gimp Fight are always at their best when do something just a little bit weird, and their strangely sweet foot puppetry sketch proved as much tonight. Not as in-yer-face as their rap about bestiality, sure, but way cooler. As for Idiots of Ants, I don't think the irony that I'm sure is intended behind their "differences between men and women" sketch really translated, leading to a reaction which hovered between subdued and huffy, but their 'Allo 'Allo meets The Wire sketch is a load of fun. It's Pappy's, however, who are the real masters of Bacchanalian revelry on stage, and so it proved again at this show; a dodgy mic providing the little encouragement they need to go off-script and mess about. Just delightful, and I will never, ever tire of their song about gloves. Ever.

The most unconventional stuff of the night came from the four double acts on show. Pajama Men - whom I have praised enthusiastically on this blog before, but still not enough, in my opinion - probably got the biggest reaction of the night, and it was cool to see that their comedy does translate to a short slot. After two narrative shows, it'd be fascinating to see a proper sketch show from them... Anna and Katy's bizarre sketch in which they play South African men who use their weirdly long arms to fly (I did say it was bizarre) rightly went down a storm, and the charmingly shambling, low-key Two Episodes of Mash were a lovely change of pace.

Topping the bill were Will (iam Andews) and Greg (McHugh) who haven't performed together for a few years, and whom I haven't seen perform together at all. If you go back through my ACMS reviews and tweets, you'll probably get the impression that I'm something of a fan of the hugely inventive and very funny William Andrews - and hey, that impression would be 100% accurate - so it was ace to see him in a double act, and being as brilliant as ever.

All in all, a very high-quality night, and one that would quieten the mind of anyone concerned about the state of British sketch comedy. I wonder if there was anyone from the telly in?

* Annoying that I couldn't get through a piece about sketch shows without this phrase popping up somewhere, but at least it wasn't in the usual context...

Danny and the Deep Blue Sea and Fanta Orange reviews

Did I not link to these reviews? How remiss of me.

Here's my take on the very lovely, the very funny and the very well-written Danny and the Deep Blue Sea...

...and here's my review of the well-meaning but oddly muddled Fanta Orange.

Both for the ace Exeunt magazine!