Comedy review: Lights! Camera! Improvise!

Having the set collapse on them six nights a week apparently doesn't leave the members of Mischief Theatre as bruised as they would like. So past and present cast members of The Play That Goes Wrong are spending the occasional Monday night off back at the Duchess Theatre, reviving their improv show Lights! Camera! Improvise! As the title suggests, there's a movie theme, and after Oscar (Jonathan Sayer) gets suggestions of genre, location and title from the audience, the rest of the company (Charlie Russell, Bryony Corrigan, Henry Shields, Nancy Wallinger, Henry Lewis, Dave Hearn and Josh Elliott) have to bring it to life. Tonight we got a romantic comedy called "Plenty More Fish," in which shy Gerald-the-man (Shields) has to declare his love for Susie (Wallinger) before she leaves her job at the aquarium at the end of the week. But he has competition from her ex, Tony (Hearn,) an alpha-male fishmonger whose seduction technique is inspired by an angry seagull.

Comedy review: Fame: Not The Musical

I don't often venture away from straightforward theatre to standup comedy, but I'd been told David Baddiel bringing his latest show to the Menier Chocolate Factory wasn't to be missed. It's his first standup show in 15 years, having become disillusioned by a corporate gig when a roomful of bankers weren't amused by him calling them all cunts (this was back in the days when that wasn't the nicest thing anyone ever called them.) As off-West End theatres go the Menier's a decent size, and Baddiel is playing a whole month there, but he used to play Wembley Stadium, and that's one of the main points about Fame: Not The Musical, which looks at what it's like to be quite famous but not as famous as you used to be; as well as the peculiar disconnect that allows people to talk about and interact with celebrities as if they're not real people.