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If you fancy live comedy that’s a bit different to regular stand-up, and enjoy a show that recalls the spirit of Peter Cook and Beyond the Fringe, the satirical sketch show From Here to Absurdity could well be to your taste.
The show lasts for about 90 minutes and comprises about 30 sketches and songs, written and assembled by Richard Kelly –a politics lecturer at Manchester Grammar School and a freelance contributor to Private Eye and the Spectator. The material focuses on the assorted idiocies of modern life, targeting (for example) political correctness, prattish ramblers, rapacious estate agents, irritating telephone salesmen, oily counsellors, brutal gynaecologists, sad round-robin writers, deaf parents, two-faced career women, men who can’t cook, men who can’t speak, birth, marriage, divorce and death.
Following its success at the Edinburgh Fringe, the show has played at the Buxton, Chester and York comedy festivals as well as numerous pubs, clubs and theatres across the country (see Reviews). A series with Radio 4 is currently being negotiated.
The show involves three performers, each exhibiting a range of characters and accents, plus a minimalist set and topical soundtrack. None of the sketches last longer than 3 minutes, so if any of them leave you cold you can always wander off (mentally, that is) and contemplate the ‘absurdity’ of your own job, your own relationship, your own family and your own failed ambitions. We accept that, for sheer comic tragedy, no sketch can ever compete with those...
If you wish to arrange an Absurdity gig, please contact r.n.kelly@mgs.org or ring 07786 280778
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