Archive — Comedy

‘Fame proved toxic for the relationship’: when comedy double acts go sour

‘Fame proved toxic for the relationship’: when comedy double acts go sour

David Baddiel, Andy Zaltzman, Richard Herring and other comics on fame, failure and friendship.

What happens to the members of a comedy double act who have gone through a ‘divorce’? This article focuses mainly on the comedians whose partner has gone on to have greater success.

A fascinating topic, also often regularly mentioned on Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast.

And is it just me, or are most of these less successful comedians actually funnier than their more-famous counterparts?

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Note — 2018-01-15

Modified Blue Jam artwork

There may be no real science behind the concept of Blue Monday. But there is definitely something strange about mornings in January.

I always go back to work as soon as possible after the new year. On my morning walk to work, the streets are dark unlike any other time of year, and eerily quiet.

It’s now a new year tradition of mine to spend my first morning walk of each week listening to Blue Jam. Chris Morris’s peerless radio programme of the late 1990s mixed dark comedy with downtempo music. It was originally broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in the small hours of the morning, maximising its unsettling vibe.

That vibe seems to suit these weird, dark Mondays in January.

The programmes are available to download via Cook’d and Bomb’d.

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Dave Gorman: Goodish bye

Dave Gorman: Goodish bye

Dave Gorman has explained why he has decided to finish making his TV programme, Modern Life is Goodish.

With this TV show, Dave Gorman was churning out several hours of new comedy a year, and immediately burning it by televising it. Most comedians only produce one solid new hour a year, and tour it heavily before it goes anywhere near TV.

Only recently I was wondering how on earth he was achieving it. It seems we now have an answer: not very easily or healthily.

Hats off to Dave Gorman for his monumental achievement. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with next.

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