Showing titles in Performing Arts

Four further series of the award-winning satirical panel show. For over 45 years, The News Quiz has been taking a scalpel to the headlines, dissecting them with its inimitable blend of satire, silliness and sharp-witted commentary. These 32 episodes, first broadcast between April 2018 and May 2019, find the team tackling stories big and small from that news-packed year.

David Mitchell hosts the hilarious panel show which turns honest men into lying cheats. In this devious and delightfully funny competition, four comedians have the audacity to lie through their teeth for victory. They compete against each other with lies, untruths and dishonesty. Tall tales, white lies, blatant bluffs and misdirection rule. Can they smuggle the truth past each other, or will they be caught in the act of lying?

‘Hey, how you doing readers? Adam Buxton here… Let's begin with a recap. No, don't skip it! It's great stuff in the form of a montage of scenes from a film that would certainly revive the flagging fortunes of the cinema were it to be made: The Adam Buxton Story…’ So begins Love You, Bye – Adam Buxton’s wonderful follow up to the bestselling Ramble Book.

For anyone who loves American comedy, the long wait is over. Here are the never-before-told, behind-the-scenes anecdotes and remembrances from a master storyteller, filmmaker, and creator of all things funny. All About Me! charts Mel Brooks' meteoric rise from a Depression-era kid in Brooklyn to the recipient of the National Medal of Arts.

Fern Brady was told she couldn't be autistic because she's had loads of boyfriends and is good at eye contact. This is a story of how being female can get in the way of being autistic and how being autistic gets in the way of being the 'right kind' of woman.

Daniel Sloss' stand-up comedy engages, enrages, offends, unsettles, educates, comforts and gets audiences roaring with laughter - all at the same time. In his groundbreaking specials, seen on Netflix and HBO, he has brilliantly tackled everything from male toxicity and friendship to love, romance and marriage. Now, in his first book, he picks up where his specials left off, and goes after every conceivable kind of relationship.

This entertaining and sharply written guide - for both beginners breaking into comedy and professionals seeking to improve their sets and advance their careers - examines the work of great comedians such as Louis C. K., Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Izzard, Moms Mabley, Hannibal Buress, Sarah Silverman, Richard Pryor, and more as a means of illustrating the most important techniques of performing and writing stand-up.

Marc Maron was a parent-scarred, angst-filled, drug-dabbling, love-starved comedian who dreamed of a simple life: a wife, a home, a sitcom to call his own. But instead he woke up one day to find himself fired from his radio job, surrounded by feral cats, and emotionally and financially annihilated by a divorce from a woman he thought he loved.

Think you know what happened in 2018? Think again. Following hot on the heels of the success of The Audiobook of the Year (or, more precisely, 12 months later), The Audiobook of the Year (2018) bravely delves behind the headlines to sniff out the best and most bizarre facts of the past 12 months. Compiled and written by the creators of the award-winning hit comedy podcast No Such Thing as a Fish, all of whom are researchers for QI.

During the course of a career that began in the late 1940s, Lenny Bruce challenged the sanctity of organized religion and other societal and political conventions; he widened the boundaries of free speech. Critic Ralph Gleason said, "So many taboos have been lifted and so many comics have rushed through the doors Lenny opened. He utterly changed the world of comedy". Although Bruce died when he was only 40, his influence on the worlds of comedy, jazz, and satire are incalculable.

Ramble Book is about parenthood, boarding-school trauma, arguing with your partner, bad parties, confrontations on trains, friendship, wanting to fit in, growing up in the '80s, dead dads, teenage sexual anxiety, failed artistic endeavours, being a David Bowie fan and how everything you read, watch and listen to as a child forms a part of the adult you become. It’s also an audiobook about the joys of going off topic and letting your mind wander. And it’s about a short, hairy, frequently confused man called Adam Buxton.

The history of heavy metal brings us extraordinary stories of larger-than-life characters living to excess, from the household names of Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Iron Maiden and Metallica to the brutal notoriety of the underground Norwegian black metal scene and the New Wave of British heavy metal. It is the story of a worldwide network of rabid fans escaping everyday mundanity through music, of cutthroat corporate arseholes ripping off those fans and the bands they worship to line their pockets.

Outsider. Misfit. Criminal. Convict. . . . Movie star. Family man. Comedy legend. Joey Diaz has been called every name in the book (and then some). Now, for the first time, he shares the story of his unlikely rise to fame in his own words—with no punches pulled.

Ade Edmondson smashed onto the comedy circuit in the 1980s, stormed The Comedy Store and, alongside Rik Mayall, brought anarchy to stage and screen. How did a child brought up in a strict Methodist household – and who spent his formative years incarcerated in repressive boarding schools – end up joining the revolution? Well, he is part Norse. Could it be his ‘berserker’ heritage? With wisdom, nostalgia and uniquely observed humour, Ade traces his journey through life and comedy.

For over 40 years, The News Quiz has been scrutinising the headlines to give us its unique, sardonic take on the stories that are making a splash. In these 25 episodes, we raid the archives from 2010 to rediscover the highs, lows and mediums of that action-packed year. Sandi Toksvig is in the chair once more, attempting to corral panellists including Micky Flanagan, Armando Iannucci, Fred MacAulay, Milton Jones, Gyles Brandreth, Bridget Christie, Will Smith, Ava Vidal and Danielle Ward.

Comedian Pierre Novellie was on stage when a heckler suggested he was autistic. Usually, this disruption would be water off a duck's back but two things made this heckler different: first, he was himself autistic. Second, he turned out to be absolutely right. This random encounter led to a diagnosis of autism at the age of 31 that unravelled his world, explained his struggles and answered questions that had bothered him for his entire life: why were the other kids obsessed with Britney Spears instead of The Goon Show? Why don't people ever say what they mean? Why is everyone chewing so loudly?

This is a self help-book like no other. Because you are not helping yourself, James Acaster is helping you. When James quit all forms of social media in 2019 he felt like he'd been born anew, but he was worried he'd suffer withdrawal and get lured back online to compete in a never ending popularity contest with only one possible winner (f--king Zuckerberg). He knew that in order to stay clean he'd have to replace everything social media used to give him with three-dimensional real-life activities.

Being given yet another pointless 'man manual' that told him 50 ways to tie a bow tie in under 30 seconds made James May certain there was a need for another kind of book. This book, in fact. He reckons there are nine vital things that a chap should be able to do.

A voice is calling across the land, "Bombardier Milligan." "Bombadier Milligan is dead," I replied in a disguised voice. The voice replied, "Then he's going to miss his breakfast." The fourth volume of Spike Milligan's legendary account of his time in the army during World War Two begins as he and his regiment land in sunny Italy in 1943 ("The ship touched the beach very gently, so gently I suspect it's not insured").

Meet the hapless management consultants of Unthinkable Solutions - idealistic team leader Ryan, sociopathic Sophie and hippy-dippy Daisy. Enthusiastic and enterprising, they’re strong on jargon (and always ready to ‘imaginate, reincentivise and skin the leopard’), but short on practical ideas - unfortunately for the unsuspecting corporations that come to them for help.