LOL Festival, Saturday 12 January to Sunday 10 February, various venues, Exeter
Exeter’s comedy festival, Laugh Out Loud kicks off this month and headlining the event are some hilarious award-winning comedians who have recently been raising chuckles on such TV shows as 8 Out of Ten Cats, Have I Got News for You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
Tony Law – nominated for the most prestigious prize in live comedy, the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2012 – brings some gloriously absurd, loud and ridiculous comedy to Exeter Phoenix on 31 January following sell out gigs all over the country.
Also playing at Exeter Phoenix are Chortle Comedy Award nominees Peacock & Gamble; local funny women O’Shea & O’Gaukroger; Rich Peppiatt, an ex red-top reporter who, having appeared twice before the Leveson Inquiry, delivers a merciless dissection of the news paper trade; and Jigsaw, who have received huge critical acclaim for their fast and slick sketches.
At Exeter Northcott the exhilarating and hilarious Fhlip Fhlop by Rannel Theatre Company takes a bag full of classic comedy routines and updates them for the hip hop age
Two painter-decorators are doing a job in a friend’s flat, but in traditional slapstick manner, things go wrong. In a dynamic display of one-upmanship, they compete to out-do each other with moves essentially unchanged from the time of the Marx Brothers.
Alaska, by Black Fish and makin projects in association with Exeter Northcott Theatre, is a tragi-comic riot of Pythonesque dottiness.
One man goes in search of adventure, freedom and “a piece of the good life”, but soon finds that the reality is no picnic. Plummeting temperatures, technical disasters (and a severe lack of any practical skills whatsoever) soon plunge our hero into a nightmarish world of extreme
Matthew Hammond, aka the Stand Up Philosopher, presents Standing Up For Freedom in the theatre bar on Sunday 3 February. From ancient times to modern thinkers, the history of the idea of freedom is traced in a sequence of inspirational performances that unpick the concept that we think we know so well, and show it in a new light.
On Sunday 10 February, Silly Songs of Shakespeare does exactly what it says on the tin: there are songs, they are silly and they are based on Shakespeare!
Comedy events will take place at Exeter Northcott Theatre, Bikeshed Theatre, Corn Exchange, Exeter Barnfield, City Gate Hotel. Check out lolfestival.co.uk for full listings.