Critically acclaimed comic Keith Farnan has always found being Irish an advantage – who doesn’t love a good old Irish accent whilst sipping on a pint of stout? But it wasn’t always like this and signs such as “No Irish Need Apply” were commonplace where the Irish landed in droves. So what happened to change people’s mind? And how have the Irish treated their own immigrants over the years?

A former qualified solicitor practicing in litigation, Keith has performed all over the world, from the Boston International Comedy Festival to the Middle East. His debut show ‘Cruel and Unusual’, a comedy show against the Death Penalty in America, garnered much attention from media and punters alike at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and went on to become part of the Royal Festival Halls Xmas Festival in London as well as the N20 Comedy Festival and a feature on BBC Radio 4.

So in this hilarious hour of political queries and investigation, expect lots of questions, very few answers but plenty of laughs! It’s the perfect way to start St Patrick’s Day!

Keith Farnan
NO BLACKS. NO JEWS. NO DOGS. NO IRISH. ALL WELCOME.
Irish Comedian Versus Racism, Religion–ism and Immigration-ism

VENUE: The Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street, London W1D 3NE
DATE: 17th – 20th March 2010
TIME: 9:45pm
PRICE: £12 / £10
BOX OFFICE: 0207 4780100 / www.sohotheatre.com

Nina Conti, Boy With Tape on his face and Colin Hoult are joined by Joe Lycett, Barry from Watford and a top secret special guest. The 16th December evening is hosted by Eddie ‘Best Newcomer’ nominee 2009, Carl Donnelly.

You can get tickets in advance, or find out more at K2B’s website.

Venue:             THE BLOOMSBURY THEATRE, 15 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0AH
Date:                Monday 21ST December 
Tickets:            £22.50, Concessions £18.50
Doors:              19.30 show 20.30
Box Office:       020 7388 8822

Tim Key headlines a great line-up that includes Idiots of Ants, Dan Clark, Adam Riches and Delete The Banjax. Resident comic Brian Gittins also appears while MC Nick Helm will keep things moving along.

The November 18th gig is at the usual K2B venue of Bar FM, 184 Hopgood Street in Shepherds Bush.

Contact Telephone Number: 07870212189
Website: http://www.knock2bag.co.uk
Email: comedynight@knock2bag.co.uk

The warm-up show is on Friday 6 November, 8pm at The Hexagon, and will be one of the last chances to see his Scandalous show. Tickets are still available.

Click here for more information and to book your tickets now.

Chris Addison, Dan Antopolski, Marcus Brigstocke, Richard Herring, Russell Howard, Francesca Martinez, Stephen Merchant, Lucy Porter and Mark Watson will perform at this barnstorming, one-off event is in support of environmental charity Friends of the Earth. Special guest appearance from Razorlight.

Tickets are available from website or Ticketmaster on 08448 44 47 48 or www.foe.co.uk/livestock.

To date, acts who have performed include: Al Murray, Michael McIntyre, Lee Mack, Russell Howard, Dave Gorman, Punt and Dennis, Ian Broudie (The Lightening Seeds), Huw Cornwall (The Stranglers), Goldie Lookin Chain, Connie Fisher and Ursula Martinez.

Guests already confirmed for this season include: David Baddiel, Chris Addison, We Are Klang, Jimeon, BeardyMan, The Magnets, Fascinating Aida, Nina Conti, Sarah Millican, Russell Kane, Swing Dance X-Treme, Missy Malone and Paul Zerdin. Plus a number of very special mystery guests. For each week’s line-up check out: www.frankskinnerlive.com. All Tickets £10

The performance is a monologue which leads us through a period of about 18 months in Triona Adams’ life. The starting point is her life as a successful London theatrical agent which she abandons to become a nun, and the main narrative concerns her experiences in a Benedictine abbey (don’t call it a convent or a nunnery) somewhere between Oxford and Swindon. There are no big gags in the show, but the tightness of the script and the quality of Triona’s gentle performance and stagecraft made this a spell-binding show which kept the audience at the Etcetera enthralled throughout.

Triona sets the scene with descriptions of the showbiz scene and parties which explain how she became dissatisfied with her personal and professional life before moving seamlessly in to the introduction to the abbey, her decision to become a nun, her life as a postulant and her eventual disillusionment with the life and decision to leave the abbey. From these bare bones, it doesn’t sound too promising but Triona’s very poetic, moving and gently ironic script breathe life into a potentially dry story. The icing on the cake is the delivery of the story, with every line perfectly delivered, every accent perfectly imitated and every pause perfectly timed.

The performance demonstrates the power of the art of storytelling in the oral tradition, which is centuries old and was used to great effect by Charles Dickens who regularly toured his new material on the live circuit of the 19th century. Triona was very well received by the Etcetera audience, who were silent throughout the performance, apart from a new sniggers, but wildly enthusiastic at the end. Another one to seek out at The Gilded Balloon.

Long Tooth is the duo Vivienne Gibbs and Trudi Jackson playing the characters of Liz and Julie who live together, play together and perform together. The duo archetype they adopt is the dominant, bullying character and the buffoon who always manages to subvert the process and gets the laughs in the end, a tradition going back through Laurel and Hardy, all the way to Shakespeare.

The theme of the show is a quick-fire journey backwards and forwards in time to Liz’s favourite scenes with onstage costume changes for Liz covered by the magician’s distraction technique of focussing the audience on interludes of singing, dancing, pouting and even body-popping from Julie. The performance looks tightly scripted (or very well improvised) as the duo work their way from Joan of Arc through Walter Raleigh and Marie Antoinette to Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. It’s difficult to tell if the show is loose or under-rehearsed because that’s exactly the effect they’re aiming for and they succeed perfectly as the costume changes become increasingly manic and shambolic.

There are virtually no punch-line type gags in the show, which relies on the script, the interaction between the performers themselves and the breaking down of the conventional theatrical divide between the performers and the audience. In this show, the conventional wisdom of keeping out of trouble by avoiding the front row won’t necessarily help, particularly in a small theatre like this, but at least you won’t be humiliated. The show has a little bit of everything – dressing up, singing, dancing, a Benny Hill-type chase at the end and snippets of great music, including Ike & Tina Turner’s version of “Proud Mary”.

The verdict – if had paid to see this show, I wouldn’t have been disappointed. There’s bags of energy, anarchy, a bit of satire and plenty of subversion of the normal theatrical conventions. The audience on the night I saw it (all 20 of us) absolutely loved it. If you’re in Edinburgh for the Festival, go and see it.

The gig wasn’t billed as a comedy event, more of “An Evening With…”, which is exactly how it played out.  The venue was about half full the majority of the audience seemed to be there to see Jan Ravens rather than to watch whichever artist happened to be performing on that night.

The opening of the performance was an Anne Robinson impression using props which were stripped away symbolically to reveal the real Jan Ravens, giving a first taste of the confessional, behind the mask,  nature of much of the material to come.  The performance covered a variety of areas ranging from autobiography to a potted history of the impressionist’s art via a workshop in creating a Janet Street-Porter impression, light political satire and a lot of Fiona Bruce.  There aren’t any belly laughs in the show, but there are a lot of interesting insights into the art of comedy and impressionism alongside the insights into the mind and motivation of Jan Ravens, including a swipe at the TV producers who relegate female impressionists to background roles, including the Spitting Image decision to have Margaret Thatcher voiced by a man (Steve Nallon).

The main theme of the evening seemed to be that it’s increasingly difficult to be an impressionist today, particularly a female one, because of the increasing pressure on female politicians and newsreaders to fit into a standardised image and persona, using the Blair babes as an example of the trend and Thatcher and Widdicombe as examples of the old school.

The concept of the evening, shining a light into some of the darker corners of the impressionist’s life and work, was reasonably successful and warmly appreciated by all of the audience at the conclusion.  The one element which didn’t work at all for me was the piece at the end which combined all of the impressions previously demonstrated into 1 song.  The song format seemed to dilute the effect of each impression by removing some of the characterisations which would normally allow us to recognise the character instantly and, ultimately didn’t work particularly well as a big finale.

Overall verdict?  If you’re interested in more than just easy laughs and want to see behind the mask for an hour, this show is well worth seeing.