Showing titles in Performing Arts

In Yardsticks for Failure, Ivo attempts to defy the dark (well, beige) forces of inertia with the pride of self-actualisation and fulfilment. It's a journey down the sink hole of Ivo's brilliant brain as he attempts to get his life together, achieve his goals, and somehow write a book about achieving his goals, all while battling the distractions of the modern world. This is a book about those aspirations we all have - both big and small, that are slipping away as we battle the day-to-day literal and metaphorical inbox that's never getting to zero.

"I've experienced a whole lot the last few years and I have a lot to share. So I hope that you'll take a moment to sit back, relax and enjoy the words I've put together for you in this book. I think you'll find I've left no stone unturned, no door unopened, no window unbroken, no rug unvacuumed, no ivories untickled. What I'm saying is, let us begin, shall we?" (Ellen DeGeneres)

In these fresh and hilarious personal essays, Mindy Kaling gives the inside scoop on her new role as single mom, the perks of being her own husband, and how she deals with social anxiety even at the most glamorous A-list parties. In between, the beloved actress, writer, and Hollywood power-bruncher gets Kanye West’d at her best friend’s birthday, thwarts an “only in LA” crime, and learns what it means to have it all.

Rob Delaney is a father, a husband, a comedian, a writer. He is the author of an endless stream of beautiful, insane jokes on Twitter. He is sober. He is sometimes brave. He speaks French. He has bungee-jumped off the Manhattan Bridge. He enjoys antagonizing political figures, powerful retailers and the Kardashians. He listens to metal while he works out. He broke into an abandoned mental hospital with his mother. He played Sir Lancelot in Camelot. He has battled depression. He is funny as s***. He cleans up well. He and Margaret Atwood have a thing going on Twitter.

Please note: contains strong language and adult content.

The 2 Johnnies' massive success has taken them as far afield as Sydney, Compton and Abu Dhabi. But for them nothing compares to living in Ireland. And in C'Mere and I Tell Ya they dig into the tastes, habits and rites of passage that have made them who they are.

Top comedian Ross Noble is his usual brilliant self in this extended recording of shows in Manchester and Australia.

By rights, Ozzy Osbourne should not be alive. He spent forty years on a hell-raising, bat-biting, ant-snorting*, drink and drug-fuelled bender. He broke his neck going two miles an hour on a quad bike and died twice in a chemically induced coma. And yet - at 62 years old - he is healthier and happier than ever. He is a walking medical miracle. So who better to offer the public medical advice and support?

With its brilliant blend of the silly, the serious and the satirical, The News Quiz has been a must-listen for comedy fans since it started 46 years ago. Recorded in front of an audience, these three series see Andy Zaltzman presiding over a motley crew of comedians and journalists as they trawl through the biggest (and smallest) news stories of 2023 to provide comedy, commentary, irony and irreverence.

As we look forward to gradually emerging from lockdown over the summer, we're reuniting some famous, brilliant, funny women for a remote catch-up, where they mull over the highs and lows of the past year. They’ll celebrate International Women's Day by sharing their experiences and their hopes for a better future, as life starts to opens up again.

Caddyshack is one of the most beloved comedies of all time, a classic snobs vs. slobs story of working-class kids and the white-collar buffoons that make them haul their golf bags in the hot summer sun. It has sex, drugs, and one very memorable candy bar, but the movie we all know and love didn't start out that way, and everyone who made it certainly didn't have the word classic in mind as the cameras were rolling.

Covering the Greeks, Sharks, World War II, and Star Wars, this performance was recorded in New York City during an American tour.

UFC Unfiltered with Jim Norton and Matt Serra is the must-listen podcast for fight fans. Edgy veteran comedian Jim Norton and former UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra push the boundaries in the UFC's first audio series. “Unfiltered” delivers everything, including pre- and post-fight analysis, industry stories, observations, opinions and interviews with UFC sources, fighters and celebrity fans.

In Planet Funny, Ken Jennings explores this brave new comedic world and what it means - or doesn’t - to be funny in it now. Tracing the evolution of humor from the caveman days to the bawdy middle-class antics of Chaucer to Monty Python’s game-changing silliness to the fast-paced meta-humor of The Simpsons, Jennings explains how we built our humor-saturated modern age, where lots of us get our news from comedy shows and a comic figure can even be elected president of the United States purely on showmanship.

Bo Burnham was a teenager living in his parents' attic in Massachusetts when he started posting funny songs to YouTube that immediately turned heads with their wise satire that belied his very young age. He quickly struck a chord. Over 16 million people watched his videos and he soon amassed a gigantic (and young) online following that excitedly awaited each new video. Soon after that, Bo became revered in all comedy circles for being a wholly original, highly intelligent young voice.

Jo Brand is one of Britain's funniest and best-loved comedians. With a sharp eye for the absurd and in her own unique voice, she tells her story for the first time. What possessed her to become a professional comedian in the cut-throat world of stand-up comedy after 10 years as a psychiatric nurse? How did she deal with late-night drunken audiences? Raised in middle class comfort, Brand left home in her teens to live with someone entirely inappropriate.

Lee Mack, host of BBC One's They Think It's All Over, star of ITV's The Sketch Show and BAFTA Award winner, stars in this hilarious six-part comedy show as heard on BBC Radio 2.

Room 101 is the anti-Desert Island Discs. Instead of picking the tracks, books and luxuries they love, guests are invited to banish their least favourite things to Orwell's eponymous chamber of horrors. Twenty-seven episodes of the show were broadcast on Radio 5 between 1992 and 1994, and it went on to run for 18 hit series on BBC TV before relaunching on Radio 4 in 2023. This specially curated collection contains 16 of the very best editions of the original radio series.

In his fascinating and hilarious BBC Radio 4 stand-up show, comedian and quizzer Paul Sinha shines a light on the important historical moments that you never got taught at school and explains why so much of what you did learn is wrong. There will also, as ever, be puns.

Norman Wisdom's early years could easily have come straight from the pages of a Dickens novel. Left by their frightened mother and ill-treated by a brutal father, Norman and his brother were forced to fend for themselves, sleeping rough in London and stealing food to survive. This is a rags to riches tale of the man Charlie Chaplin said would take his mantle and who went on to make millions laugh around the world for over five decades.