Showing titles in Entertainment & Performing Arts

Stand-up comedy from some of the best comedians at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe including Mark Simmons, Amy Gledhill, Vittorio Angelone, Harriet Dyer, Joshua Bethania, Martin Angolo, John Meagher, Michelle Shaughnessy. Hosted by Alison Spittle.

The New Comedy Bible is a step-by-step, no excuses manual for writing, performing, and launching your career as a stand-up comic. Written by Judy Carter, the author of The Comedy Bible (2001), which was called by The Washington Post and Forbes as a “Comedy Essential”. This new book, penned in classic Carter’s style - part career coach and part comedy dominatrix - has 100 percent new content.

A soul-stirring new musical conceived by New York Times best-selling novelist Jodi Picoult and playwright Timothy Allen McDonald, Breathe places listeners inside the walls of five homes during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Filled with songs and vignettes that examine new relationships, rekindling flames, parenting, racial reckoning, and grief during a pandemic, this incredibly timely world premiere—written and produced online in 2020 in real-time as events unfolded—reflects the very topics that weighed on the hearts and minds of Americans.

Partiendo de conceptos básicos (¿qué es una escena?, ¿qué es una secuencia?, ¿cómo lograr el clímax de un acto?, ¿cómo lograr el clímax de una película?) McKee muestra el misterio de las estructuras, explica las características de cada género, define la importancia de la ambientación, la diferencia entre la caracterización y la realidad de un personaje, en suma, todo aquello que hace que un guión destaque por encima de los demás.

Ricky chats with comedians Kerry Godliman, Sean McLoughlin, Diane Morgan, David Baddiel, Ben Bailey Smith, Tom Basden, Roisin Conaty, James Acaster and Robin Ince.

Clive Merrison stars as Holmes, with Michael Williams as Watson, in this collection from the unique, fully dramatised BBC Radio 4 canon. These 12 stories range from Holmes' very first case to the epic struggle between Holmes and Moriarty high above the Reichenbach Falls.

Rodney Dangerfield's fidgety delivery, self-deprecating humor, and catchphrase, "I don't get no respect," made him a comedy icon in nightclubs, on television, and in movies. But Rodney's long road to stardom was as rocky as his real life. That's when he decided to give comedy one last shot . . . Back in the clubs and thanks to a fortuitous prime-time set on The Ed Sullivan Show, at the age of forty-five, the newly christened Rodney Dangerfield was an "overnight" success. It was the greatest second act in the history of show business.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Where Have All the Bullets Gone?, written and read by Spike Milligan. Back to those haunting days in Italy in 1944, at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, with lava running in great red rivulets down the slope towards us, and Jock taking a drag on his cigarette and saying, "I think we've got grounds for a rent rebate."

Following his massive Out Out Tour, Micky returns with an even bigger tour and even funnier recording. Recorded live at the Hackney Empire this superb performance shows Micky at the top of his game, let alone back in it!

Cinema is full of neurotic personalities, but few things are more transfixing than a woman losing her mind onscreen. Horror as a genre provides the most welcoming platform for these histrionics: crippling paranoia, desperate loneliness, masochistic death-wishes, dangerous obsessiveness, apocalyptic hysteria. Unlike her male counterpart—the eccentric'—the female neurotic lives a shamed existence, making these films those rare places where her destructive emotions get to play.

Anthony Bourdain, Gabrielle Hamilton, and Eric Ripert are all well established, accomplished chefs; they share their early cooking experiences, what influenced their cooking styles, and what made them want to be chefs forever. Bourdain is the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles, the author of the best-selling book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, and the host of the popular Food Network series, A Cook's Tour.

In this elegant and compelling biography, best-selling writer Shawn Levy writes of these many De Niros - the characters and the man - seeking to understand the evolution of an actor who once dove deeply into his roles as if to hide his inner nature, and who now seemingly avoids acting challenges, taking roles which make few apparent demands on his overwhelming talent.

Described by Barry Took as "a kaleidoscope of funny voices, catch phrases, and innuendo, revolving at breakneck speed and with a complete disregard for logic", I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again pre-dated I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue. It showcased the comic talents of Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graeme Garden, David Hatch, Jo Kendall, and Bill Oddie.

In the perfect companion piece to his first book, Blake Snyder delivers even more insider information gleaned from a 20-year track record as one of Hollywood's most successful spec screenwriters. Designed for screenwriters, novelists, and movie fans, this book gives listeners key breakdowns of the 50 most instructional movies from the past 30 years. From M*A*S*H to Crash, Alien to Saw, and 10 to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Snyder reveals how screenwriters in the past tackled the same challenges faced by screenwriters today.

Michael McIntyre is electrifying, his energy, charm and pinpoint observations leave the packed house baying for more. Michael McIntyre Live And Laughing also includes Michael's appearance on BBC1's Live At The Apollo.

Steve Hughes spent his formative years in Australia as a heavy metal drummer! After 10 years of recording and touring Steve gave up his job as a drummer and decided to start talking to the audience. Widely regarded one of the most esteemed and exciting stand up comedians working on the International circuit, Steve rocks the room with over 45 minutes of blistering political stand up, recorded live at The London Comedy Store.

A sparkling collection of specials and spin-offs from the award-winning BBC Radio 4 comedy show, plus two tributes to the legendary Humphrey Lyttelton. This third and final Clue treasury features a panoply of specials based around the perennial ‘antidote to panel games’. In the mix are I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Christmas Clue, featuring the team’s unique interpretation of A Christmas Carol; Humph in Wonderland, in which they venture down a rabbit hole; and In Search of Mornington Crescent, in which Andrew Marr peers behind the veil of secrecy surrounding that illustrious game.

In these 24 episodes, Tom Wrigglesworth phones home for his weekly check-in, giving us a funny, fascinating glimpse into his family background and the influences that have shaped his temperament, opinions and hang-ups. As the conversations unfold, Tom takes time out from the calls to explain the situation and his parents’ reactions, and relate various anecdotes from the past which illustrate his family's views. And sometimes he just needs to sound off about life’s everyday annoyances.

Mike Bubbins, star of the BBC sitcom Mammoth, has recorded his first stand up comedy show. It's a very funny performance and includes a lot of hilarious stories, nostalgia for the old days, and optimism about the good new days. Recorded live in Wales, Mike proves what an accomplished comedian he is.

The tale of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker has become modern myth, an epic tragedy of the corruption of a young man in love into darkness, the rise of evil, and the power of good triumphing in the end. But it didn't start out that way. In this thorough account of one of cinema's most lasting works, Michael Kaminski presents the true history of how Star Wars was written, from its beginnings as a science fiction fairy tale to its development over three decades into the epic we now know, chronicling the methods, techniques, thought processes, and struggles of its creator.