Latest 7 magazine

Last Woman Standing, BBC3, Tuesday

Time was when I used to laugh – loudly – at American Gladiators and how it epitomised all that seemed American and not British in its ‘anything for a spectacle’ mentality. I’d come back from the pub/club in the small wee hours and howl with laughter at the very idea of such ridiculousness ever being shown to those not intoxicated or bereft of a healthy sleep pattern. Surely that would be taking it seriously. Surely the civilised world would come crashing down when people hitting each other with giant Q-tips became approved prime-time viewing. Read the rest of this article »

There’s a new weekend comedy night in town – well, it’s been around for a couple of months but it’s good and settled now. Laughing Horse Comedy has been running comedy nights around London and the South East, as well as a free Fringe at the cultural massive that is the Edinburgh Festival and shows at the Brighton Festival, for some time now. It also runs its respected new act stand-up competition each year, some of the heats of which you may have caught last month at this very venue (previous years’ winners include circuit favourites Russell Kane and Carl Donnelly). So when Laughing Horse announced it was starting a weekly weekend comedy night in Brighton we knew that the Brighton comedy scene had made the London lot sit up and take notice.

Back to the night though, and Laughing Horse keep setting up some of the best emerging line-ups around for us, from both the Brighton and London pool of comics. Tonight’s line-up is hosted by the delightful and gutsy Sajeela Kershi (right), safe hands as ever for a comedy night. Joining her as the line-up, delivering a mixture of comedic stylings, are Steve N Allen, Bobby Carroll, Stephanie Lang, Martin Hill and zany Canadian comic Wes Zaharuk. With the bar open until 2am and the evening’s events taking place in the beautiful setting of The Quadrant’s upstairs room, you can happily settle in for a fun Saturday night. Get there early to baggsy yourself a prime position.
Laughing Horse Comedy, The Quadrant, Brighton, Saturday 13 February, 8pm, £6/5.
follow me on twitter – latestvicky

Those who only know the Count from his successful Radio 4 show (he has been performing live at Komedia for years) might worry that the verbal gymnastics of the tongue-tied Arthur would be lost in the clutter of a staged production. And from time to time they were indeed lost in his biggest Brighton booking to date. But, on the whole, this was a cleverly conceived and smartly executed show.

The shape of the evening was a tribute to Arthur presented by the head of a Doncaster cable TV company. Silly, yes, but then why not? After all, Count Arthur is a fiction built on extreme silliness.

The stage was dressed like a TV chat show but there was no Arthur for some time, not until we heard him from the wings saying to play some music because he wasn’t ready. From then on in, the bumbling, deluded loon spoonered and malapropped his way through 70 minutes of hysterical nonsense.

Via really well executed video clips cutting vintage archive footage with new material, we saw the Count interview Sir Laurence Olivier – or Laurence of Arabia as the Count puts it – and presenting the pilot of Ask The Family before losing the job to Robert Robinson.

When he announced that he had also been in Doctor Who the audience was enthralled, only to be rewarded with a clip of a Cyberman and Arthur dubbed over moaning about being able to ‘‘see nothing in this bloody costume’’.

Such devices can only work if done well and these brilliant clips had been lovingly and flawlessly crafted. There is little denying that Arthur owes something to Harry Worth, but so few of us remember him, and of course our more relaxed attitudes allow Arthur to be truly despicable in the cause of comedy.

The running gag throughout of the theme to Robin Hood, the TV version, finally paid off with Arthur, the TV presenter and the camp and downtrodden stage manager appearing as Robin, Friar Tuck and Little John in the silliest dance ever to disgrace the stage of the Theatre Royal.

A pure, vintage delight pulled off with great aplomb.
Theatre Royal Brighton, 1 February
4/5
Andrew Kay

They may have gone untrumpeted at the BBC 2 Folk Awards last week. But this double-bill of Manchester’s Nancy Elizabeth and Brighton’s Mary Hampton was all the proof you need that folk is flickering back to life via some young and very vivid imaginations. Headliner Elizabeth played from her two albums of soft, solitudinous country-folk, accompanying ‘Feet of Courage’ with only a shaker, a stick hitting a chair back, and the heavy boots she’d sweated away all night in especially for this purpose. Her head was in a mess, she said, because she’d just fallen in love. With an accountant. It was a lovely set, but she suffered just slightly from following Hampton, who grows more arresting with every performance, her piercing attic folk veiled with the softest of deliveries and the ghost of a wry smile. ‘The Bird In The Bush’, the spellbindingly erotic traditional once sung by Anne Briggs, could have been her own.
Prince Albert, 3 February
4/5
Bella Todd