journalism
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Indie Brighton Listings: an interview with Scoops Impro
Hello! I’m trying to interview someone who is performing in Brighton or is putting cool stuff on in Brighton every week. This is part of my exciting new gambit, the Indie Brighton listings newsletter. A newsletter you should absolutely subscribe to if you live in, or regularly visit, the city of Brighton. The only thing Read more
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Complaining to the BBC is almost always pointless
I got very cross with the BBC for sticking Helen Lewis on Have I Got News For You and wrote to them to complain about it. [1] For context, Lewis is a journalist notorious for her relentless anti-trans grift. Obviously HIGNFY has had guests on with odious views before – Boris Johnson springs immediately to Read more
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Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage + David Cronenberg’s Wife, The Crescent, York
This review first appeared in The Morning Star In a working men’s club turned community venue in Old York, indie kids young and old are out in force to see Jeffrey Lewis: New York’s finest, and possibly only, comic book artist, perma-touring troubadour, DIY garage-rock musician, and anti-folk songwriter. What is anti-folk? Tom, singer in Read more
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Some Edinburgh posters
After the amusing hoo-hah of Actually It’s About Ethics In Comedy Journalism, I’ve noticed some folks bringing their shows to Edinburgh have quoted me on their posters or in their material. This isn’t new – it’s been a few years now of seeing my own words quoted back at me from a poster in the Read more
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All the shows I saw at Brighton Fringe 2024
Over on my newsletter I’ve posted links to all the Fringe, Spiegeltent, and Festival shows I went to this year. I’ve probably forgotten a couple, but this is how posterity shall remember it. I had a lovely time, and enjoyed excellent company throughout. Next year, I think I’ll take a few more risks and see Read more
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Re-Enactment: The Diggers, Mark Thomas, Victoria Melody and the Brighton Folk Choir
“Your freedom to uphold / seeing Cavaliers of old / to kill you if they could / and rights from you withhold /Stand up now Diggers all!” Was it all just a fever dream? A sunny Saturday lunchtime, and my folk choir is singing a 17th century folk ballad in Whitehawk, encouraging gardeners with pitchforks Read more
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Review: Rice, Alvin Liu, The Glitch, Waterloo
Note: this review first appeared in the Morning Star Alvin Liu is from China, where even milquetoast liberals [1] are brutally censored. Still, a thriving standup scene has developed in the past few years in Shanghai and Beijing – though your entire venue might get shut down if someone makes a joke that could even Read more
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Review: Julia Masli, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Soho Theatre
This article first appeared in the Morning Star newspaper. Can clowns save the world? This probably wasn’t what Julia Masli, an Estonian performer trained by the notorious Parisian pedagogue Philippe Gaulier, had set out to achieve with her latest. Still, you never know. Masli always aims high, with seemingly limitless reserves of care, poise, and Read more
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Venn Diagram: Best Comedy of 2023
I told you the clowns were coming. Not necessarily red in nose and claw, but trained and brutalised by Phillippe Gaulier in Paris, broken down to their base components, then built back up again, full of vulnerability and wonder. Viggo Venn won Britain’s Got Talent with little more than an unexpected number of high vis Read more
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Best albums of 2023: Morning Star round-up
We are now in the era of Spotify Unwrapped. This is the zeitgeist of the streaming giant encouraging users to share which musicians they’ve not been giving their money to the most often over the past twelve months. Out there, away from the algorithms, it’s been a good year. The one overriding theme? Death, best Read more
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