Riding the wave of hype following a well-received performance at last year’s Edinburgh festival and a bunch of prime time TV appearances, Venue finds out how fresh-faced Geordie Chris Ramsey earned his stripes on the comedy…

Bath Comedy Festival returns for its fourth instalment this month, promising a furiously eclectic line-up from music and magic to cabaret and comic art. Steve Wright has a funny turn. The very first instalment, back in 2009,…

“Sometimes we tell the audience that they’re all going to die and they cheer”: writer and comedian Timandra Harkness talks corpses and calculators with Iris Faraway. Sharks, meteorites or falling out of bed: which is more likely…

Steve Wright looks forward to having a good laugh in 2012. Bristol’s two big summer comedyfests will both return this year. After a widely admired debut last summer, featuring the likes of Ed Byrne, Russell Howard and Ardal…

Bristol and Bath love their comedy, and everybody knew it this year. Steve Wright looks back. Bristol comics past and present once again bestrode the comedy landscape this year. At one end of the armpit-to-arena continuum,…

From service station sandwiches to supporting Stephen Merchant, the Welsh funnyman tells Fiona Morrison about life in comedy’s fast lane. When I’m driving I sit side-saddle like I’m a riding a horse at a show-jumping event. The…

David Evans goes moustache-to-moustache with TV-bound, hirsute Bristol comedian, John Robins. You’ve got a busy month ahead, John. First up is a two-night headline slot at The Comedy Box. Excited? Yeah, I’m really looking forward…

How a roomful of pub junk became Bristol’s smallest performance space: Mike White talks to Wardrobe Theatre’s Chris Collier. The Wardrobe Theatre was born from a party. There are three main people behind it – me, a chap called…

A flowering TV career, another top-selling tour, a bunch of Perrier nominations and THAT voice. Joe Spurgeon meets the coolest cat in comedy, Reginald D Hunter. “You have to learn how people communicate. In some areas of Britain,…

Just three months after the demise of Jesters Comedy Club, owner David Trew returns with a brand new comedy night bang in the centre of town. Steve Wright looks back and forward with Mr Trew. "I always felt that Jesters needed to…

Steve Wright meets shambolic stand-up Ed Aczel. Ed Aczel’s one of the more unusual properties on the comedy circuit: a 42-year-old project manager for a business marketing company who took up comedy in his spare time after doing…

Stonings, arrests and way too much hummus: Mike White talks to the firebrand comic who hiked the entire length of the Israeli Separation Barrier. Additional research: Anna Behrmann. There’s something intrinsically subversive…

Comedian/actor Les Dennis is pitching up at the Tobacco Factory for the world premiere of ‘Jigsy’, a one-man show about a struggling Scouse entertainer. Steve Wright puts the questions. Depending on your age, you'll know Les…

Steve Wright looks forward to Peter Hall’s eighth summer season at Theatre Royal Bath. Peter Hall’s enjoyed a couple of landmark anniversaries of late. Last year was the great director’s 80th birthday, while this March saw the…

July is comedy central here in Bristol, with one established comedyfest being joined by a big, spanking new arrival. But can a congested diary really help make our city a comedy mecca? Steve Wright quizzes the promoters.…

Bath’s Ustinov and Egg theatres are staging ‘Life Savings’, a two-part drama based on the real-life memories of the cast members. Steve Wright gets personal. The actors have never done anything quite like this before, and I think…

It was threatened with closure but a public outcry saved the day. Bath’s Comedy Cavern’s survived – at least for the time being. Steve Wright gives three cheers. It looks as though we are saved now. The public support has been…

Joe Spurgeon meets the man behind ‘Fairymonsterghost’ – a trio of plays each of which give a new slant to a Shakespeare favourite. Tim Crouch, deep-rooted Bristol alumnus last seen round these parts in the unforgettable,…

Directors’ Cuts is returning to the Alma Tavern for another multifarious season of short plays. Steve Wright meets the young directors showcasing their skills this year. Since its beginnings five years ago, we’ve waxed lyrical…

Bath Fringe swings into gear this month and a mighty fine-looking charabanc of music, comedy, theatre and loads else it looks to be. Velimir Ilic looks under the bonnet. After last year's prodigious line-up (folk colossus Martin…

Performance cheese-tasting, the history of the 20th century in 70 minutes and a semaphore soap opera are among the delights on offer at this year’s Mayfest thesp riot. Steve Wright is our man waving the flags. At a time when our…

Venue Theatre editors Shirley Brown (1980s-1990s), Tom Phillips (1990s-2004) and Steve Wright (2004-present) look back over three decades of madcap, inventive and regularly brilliant theatre in Bristol and Bath. A map of Bristol…

The history and myths surrounding Bristol’s Eldon House pub are the basis for an intriguing-looking slice of theatre-cum-cabaret. Steve Wright lines ’em up. One of my favourite days so far has been visiting the Strangers’ Burial…

The Ustinov theatre in Bath has got a new artistic director – and even though he’s directed Madonna on the West End in his time, he won’t be casting any B-listers in gimmicky productions of Shakespeare. Steve Wright meets the…

We’ve had theatre in shops, on boats, on the streets and in empty warehouses – so why not theatre in a cave? Steve Wright ventures underground. Dreams: shadowy, unknowable, many-tentacled things that bubble up from our…

Unless you’ve already got yourself a ticket, you probably won’t get a chance to see Derek Jacobi tackling Shakespeare’s mighty ‘King Lear’. So instead here’s its equally mighty director Michael Grandage in conversation with Steve…

Bleak depiction of a blank generation or punchy state-of-the-nation drama? Steve Wright finds rated Bristol company RoomOne on typically challenging form. So many of us have finished school or university to find ourselves jobless…

A hard-hitting drama set in Rwanda is just one of the new plays on offer in this year’s national festival of youth theatre, NT Connections. Steve Wright is young at heart. I think it’s essential for the regeneration of theatre,…

A quartet of gifted comic actors have devised a show about a stag do that ends up getting very weird indeed in the remote Icelandic wastes. A Viking ‘Deliverance’, Steve Wright wonders? We’re playing with the idea of the modern,…

For its latest production, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School’s turning to spicy French classic ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’. Steve Wright gets corrupted. What’s striking is how similar, and yet opposite, the two main protagonists are.…

Fledgling Bristol company Sedated by a Brick unveil their first full-length piece, which nods to David Lynch and sows a minefield of mysteries. Steve Wright hears more. Many people have found it unsettling: some have found it…

Leo Nikolaidis meets bucket-loving comedian, Simon Munnery. Infamous on the alternative comedy circuit for his variously bonkers stage personae, Simon Munnery has now resorted to doing impressions of himself as part of his new…

The egg’s stonkingly successful 2008 Christmas who ‘The Nutcracker’ is back as the centerpiece of Theatre Royal Bath’s Family Theatre Festival. Steve Wright finds out what’s made it such a hit. It always was a Main House show…

The protagonist of Alan Ayckbourn’s latest play never appears on stage. How so? Steve Wright finds out. He is the English Chekhov. His protagonists are such real people; they are roles you just have to lose yourself in.” This…

This season Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory turn to our Will’s history plays for the first time. Steve Wright finds out why from artistic director Andrew Hilton. Bristol’s brilliant Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory have…

If you’re a regular reader of these pages you’ll know the Artspace Lifespace/Invisible Circus artistic mandate by now: locate neglected buildings and transform them, safely, for free, to be used for hugely popular artistic and…

UWE’s Small Moving Parts are running a season at the Alma all about the business of acting. Steve Wright lurks in the shadows. It is the blackest travesty of theatre ever written – the actor as the crucified one, crucified by his…

Porn-obsessed puppets, casual racism and broken dreams… Mike White takes a mosey down ‘Avenue Q’. “Sometimes people think ‘Ooh puppets – I’ll take the kids!’ but ‘Avenue Q’ really isn’t a young children’s show,” says Evan Ensign…

Next up at Bristol Old Vic? A slice of classic Brian Friel. Steve Wright lays on his hands. On one level, the play asks whether Frank really is the real thing. He’s a bit like an obscure, cult pop star who occasionally writes an…

For their latest outing, Bristol’s Uninvited Guests invite you to a party where they’ll play your favourite love songs. Steve Wright makes a dedication. It’s somewhere between a wedding reception, a wake and a live radio show.…

Russell Howard’s been all over the telly these last couple of years but now the West Country comic’s back round our parts road-testing his new stand-up show. Melissa Blease cheers up. “Is he a massive boy? Is he a man and a child…

Like theatre and dance? Got your diaries out? Right. Stand by for a hectic 2011 as thespians and terpsichoreans of every stripe get set to bound onto the boards across the West. Steve Wright and Lesley Barnes usher in the best of…

Steve Wright looks forward to having a good old chuckle in 2011. Headline news in laughter-land is that both our local comedy festivals are inked in to return next year. Bath Comedy Festival (1-10 Apr, various venues) will…

We were whisked to the depths of the Barents Sea, taken through the mean streets of Moscow and kissed by Belgians – that’ll be another roistering year in theatreland, then. Steve Wright draws back the curtain. I’ve felt angry,…

What on earth was funny about 2010? Quite a lot, actually, says Steve Wright. 2010 was a fine year for sketch comedy. After a good start from Pappy’s, who brought their ‘World Record Attempt’ (200 sketches in an hour – a heroic…

A comedian and a theatre-maker are joining forces to put on theatre in a Bristol hostelry. But this isn’t yer bog-standard ‘pub theatre’. Steve Wright gets in a round. As Mark put it the other day, we are expecting something like…

The strange and surreal world of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ is the Christmas treat at the Egg this year. Steve Wright is Venue’s mirror man. It’ll be quite a trip. Like a sort of Monty Python for young…

A new Bristol theatre  company are making their debut with a play about changing the world. Steve Wright reaches the ‘Tipping Point’. I’ve seen a lot of so-called ‘climate-change theatre’ which centres on people stranded on…

Bristol’s vast and multifaceted Inbetween Time fest is back. Steve Wright is standing at live art’s final frontier. A man covers white walls with kisses. A woman weaves strange creatures into her hair. A stage fills with red…

David Greig’s big-hitting play with music is coming to the Ustinov. Steve Wright loses a weekend in Edinburgh. “‘Midsummer’ is unashamedly romantic. At its heart it’s a romantic comedy, and if you’ve been working on Strindberg…

A group of grads from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School are determined to stick around in home waters and make some waves in the sou’west. Rina Vergano puts her oar in. “The BOVTS tagline is: World Class Training – Made in Bristol.…

Tom Hackett meets the Spice Girls-loving affectionate pop parodists. Following the whirlwind success of their first outing at the Edinburgh Fringe festival last year, musical cabaret comedy act Frisky and Mannish have been…

‘Love Love Love’ is Mike Bartlett’s acclaimed new family drama spans four decades. Baby boomer Rina Vergano talks to the playwright ’bout her generation. The world premiere production of ‘Love, Love, Love’ visits The Ustinov next…

The ever-inventive Stan’s Café mix online radio and live theatre in a new interactive piece that’s coming to Bristol’s Tobacco Factory. Steve Wright tunes in. Obviously it’s very scary for the performers. But audiences have found…

Bath’s Next Stage are taking on Lucinda Coxon’s tale of a stressed working mum who suddenly gets a new perspective on her life. Steve Wright juggles his priorities. It’s a nice irony that the very people for whom ‘Happy Now?’ –…

Over a year ago, the word went out that the Theatre Royal Bath was preparing to stage the ‘un-stageable’: the spectacular, Roman-religious awards-magnet ‘Ben Hur’, chariot race and all. The cast and crew? That’ll be a bunch of…

Bristol Old Vic’s festival of all things improvised, Bristol Jam, is back for second helpings. Helena Edwards prepares as best she can. Putting on a festival that consists of lots of people who aren’t sure what they are supposed…

Bristol Old Vic’s ‘Ferment’ returns with a third collection of new work by locally nurtured writers and performers. Steve Wright brews up. You’d have high hopes, wouldn’t you, of an event called ‘Ferment’? The word suggests a…

Venerable Bristol street theatre pioneers Desperate Men are celebrating their 30th anniversary with a whole festival dedicated to desperation. Steve Wright pounds the pavements. The street is a great place to raise contentious…

‘ENRON’, Lucy Prebble’s much-praised dissection of capitalism running out of control, is coming to Theatre Royal Bath. Steve Wright loses his shirt. In Britain we tend to be fond of our bounders. We indulge people like Alan…

Peripatetic performance troupe The Invisible Circus are about to play their top trump: ‘Carny Ville’. It might be their last. Helena Edwards visits Bristol’s covert extroverts at their city centre base and looks back on five…

Geordie chatterbox Sarah Millican – the best comedienne on the circuit for our money – is coming to Bristol. Joe Spurgeon grabs a word. Sarah Millican is having another good year. Having only tip-toed towards an open mic for the…

Revered poet/playwright Tony Harrison has revived his sparkling verse translation of Moliere’s ‘The Misanthrope’ for a second collaboration between Bristol’s big two. Steve Wright finds his rhythm. To me, verse is like a life…

Theatre West, Bristol’s excellent new-writing company, is 20 this year. And it’s celebrating in style, with a cracking autumn season and another prestigious award nomination, says Steve Wright. Since it formed in 1990, Theatre…