NT Live: Allelujah!

NT Live: Allelujah!

Alan Bennett’s sharp and hilarious new play is ‘just what the doctor ordered’ (Daily Telegraph). Filmed live at London’s Bridge Theatre during its limited run, don’t miss this ‘rousing chorus line for the NHS’ (Observer) in your local cinema.

The Beth, an old fashioned cradle-to-grave hospital serving a town on the edge of the Pennines, is threatened with closure as part of an efficiency drive. A documentary crew, eager to capture its fight for survival, follows the daily struggle to find beds on the Dusty Springfield Geriatric Ward, and the triumphs of the old people’s choir.

Alan Bennett’s celebrated plays include The History Boys, The Lady in the Van and The Madness of George III, all of which were also seen on film. Allelujah! is his tenth collaboration with award-winning director Nicholas Hytner.

Still No Idea

Best mates Lisa and Rachael are making a new show almost a decade after they created their first piece together.

Back then they had no idea where to start so they went onto the streets and asked the public. What story should they tell? What characters should they play? When they saw Lisa in a wheelchair and Rachael not, what the public said was funny, jaw-dropping and ultimately heartbreaking. They made a show about it. It was called No Idea.

Now people say the world has changed and things are looking up. There are more disabled people in the mainstream media, Lisa landed a big part on TV and disabled mates are getting regular auditions – happy days. So what kind of exciting stories are the TV professionals dreaming up for them?

Still No Idea is the whole story (so far): the British public, the professional writers, the TV execs. Part verbatim theatre, part improv, part comedy sketch show, this is a raucous and mischievous exposé of good intentions gone bad and how sometimes no matter how hard we try, we still have absolutely no idea.

BIANCA DEL RIO

Bianca Del Rio, the alter ego of seasoned comic Roy Haylock, has well and truly taken the world by storm. After quickly becoming the front-runner on the sixth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race Bianca was crowned the winner in May 2014.

The self-proclaimed ‘Clown in a Gown’ will tell tales of her world travels and the outrageous circus that is her life on the most ambitious solo drag show tour in history on her brand-new comedy show ‘It’s Jester Joke’.

Irreverent and fierce, Bianca is guaranteed to keep audiences in stitches with her comical ‘tell-it-like-it-is’ views, from politics and travel to family and social media that has seen her become one the biggest drag superstars in the world today.

The brand new ‘It’s Jester Joke’ Tour will travel the length and breadth of the country bringing her irreverent, side-splitting comedy to 13 cities including dates at SSE Wembley Arena, B1 Birmingham Arena, Motorpoint Cardiff Arena.

Tickets are on sale from Friday 5th October.

Steve Bugeja: Almost

Following three critically acclaimed shows and straight from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Steve Bugeja has hit the road for his third and largest UK tour. His new show, Almost, will arrive at Hull Truck Theatre on Friday 26 October.

As seen on Love Island: Aftersun (ITV2) and Russell Howard’s Stand Up Central (Comedy Central), Steve has also been making a name for himself internationally as he has been invited to perform at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival twice, appearing on both ABCTV’s Opening Night Comedy Allstars Supershow and on Comedy Up Late.

Steve Bugeja’s Almost has been praised by several national publications including The Guardian who described it as “an eye for comic detail that’s all his own”. Chortle: The UK Comedy Guide said “Drum tight, as if polished by a sitcom writers’ room to cram as many jokes in as humanly possible”, and The Scotsman mused “Plentiful jokes and compelling storytelling”.

Dave Gorman

With Great PowerPoint Comes Great ResponsibilityPoint

Dave Gorman, the man behind Dave TV’s hit show Modern Life Is Goodish as well as Are You Dave Gorman? and Googlewhack Adventure, is back on the road with a brand new live show, With Great PowerPoint Comes Great ResponsibilityPoint.

As the title suggests, he’s bringing his laptop and projector screen with him so expect the ‘King of Powerpoint comedy’ (Guardian) to have more detailed analysis of those parts of life you’ve never stopped to think about before. Hey, not all heroes wear capes.

With support from Nick Doody .

“…a near fool proof delivery system for jokes. Gorman’s intention isn’t to mock PowerPoint but to explore its potential as a weapon in the stand-up armoury” (The Guardian)

‘Dave Gorman is funny and brilliant in equal measure’ (The Times)

‘There is no need to draw a graph to calculate that this is an extremely entertaining evening’ (Evening Standard)

‘…has transformed the seemingly mundane into hours of unabashed hysteria’ ( Metro)

Romesh Ranganathan – ‘The Cynic’s Mixtape’

Romesh Ranganathan is back on tour with a brand new stand up show and will be visiting the Bonus Arena, Hull on 3rd and 23rd November 2019.

Romesh is back with a brand new show ‘The Cynic’s Mixtape’, his most brutally honest show yet.

Fresh from the ‘Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan’, ‘A League Of Their Own’ and ‘Judge Romesh’, he’s putting showbiz aside to deliver a carefully curated selection of all the things he has found unacceptable since the last tour, including why trying to save the environment is a scam, why none of us are truly free, and his suspicion that his wife is using gluten intolerance to avoid sleeping with him.

Romesh’s cynicism has become his trademark, but since being nominated for Best Newcomer at the 2013 Edinburgh Comedy Awards this deadpan humour has become one of Britain’s most respected and popular comics. Now, though, it’s time for the Asian Provocateur to return to his stand-up roots for a while – there’s things he needs to point out, discuss and have a good moan about. Care to join him?

Romesh Ranganathan is a stand-up comedian, actor, writer and presenter. After ditching his burgeoning Maths teacher career in his early 30s for a life on the comedy road, his shows Rom Com and Rom Wasn’t Built in a Day earned nominations for Edinburgh Best Newcomer 2013 and Best Show Award 2014, respectively.

Having established himself as a major force on the stand-up scene, TV work has followed in the form of BBC series Asian Provocateur (nominated for a BAFTA), The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan (BBC2), Judge Romesh (Dave), Just Another Immigrant (Showtime,

US), A League of Their Own (Sky One), Rob & Romesh Meet (Sky One), and The Reluctant Landlord (Sky One).

Rob Beckett

Comedian Rob Beckett is to bring his UK tour to Hull next year.

Rob will bring his new show ‘Wallop’ to the Bonus Arena on Saturday, 19 October 2019.

Rob Beckett is back on tour with a brand new stand up show. It’s been a busy few years for the Mouth of the South and he’s coming to see you to fill you in and make you laugh.

Host of BBC One’s All Together Now and team captain on Channel 4’s 8 Out Of 10 Cats. He is also the star of BBC One’s Live At The Apollo, Would I Lie To You?, Channel 4’s 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, BBC Two’s Mock The Week, ITV’s Play To The Whistle, ITV2’s Celebrity Juice and Sky’s A League of Their Own. And he is a host of Dave’s podcast, The Magic Sponge, alongside Jimmy Bullard and Ian Smith.

14+ only. Likely to be swearing and adult content.

Tickets for this all seated event are priced £23 each. Booking fees apply.

Tickets go on general sale at 10am on Wednesday, 29 August from www.bonusarenahull.com

Rhod Gilbert – The Book of John

Following a six-year break from stand-up, the multi-award-winning comedian is back with a brand new live show.

The Welsh wonder is set to embark upon a full UK tour in 2019, kicking off in February and taking in two shows at London’s Eventim Apollo, and two shows at Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena.

As one of the UK’s leading stand-up comedy talents, he has enjoyed many successful years as a star of television and radio. He has amassed eight series of his hugely popular ‘Rhod Gilbert’s Work Experience’. He is the current host of BBC2’s ‘The Apprentice: You’re Fired’ and is the former host of ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’.

He’s regularly hosted ‘Have I Got News for You?’ and has appeared countless times on ‘Qi’, ‘Would I Lie to You?’ and ‘8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown’. He has hosted ‘Live at The Apollo’ on multiple occasions and has twice performed on ‘The Royal Variety Performance’.

This all-seated event is suitable for ages 16+ only.

One Man Stranger Things: A Parody

Talented Canadian actor Charles Ross single-handedly recreates season one of the Netflix sensation; all the characters, dialogue, special effects, music & eggos in one superb, upside-down show.

Charles Ross and TJ Dawe grew up in the 80s, addicted to adventure movies, and they went on to co-create a number of parody shows, including One Man Lord of the Rings, which got the official seal of approval from Sir Ian McKellen, and One Man Star Wars, which has been performed over 1200 times in more than 180 cities across four continents.

The Best of ‘Ull

Some of Hull’s best comedy talent will be showcased at one of Hull Venue’s test events this summer.

As well as testing the arena’s balcony seating, the event will act as a launch for the Hull Comedy Festival and showcase some of the emerging comedy talent from the city.

Jed Salisbury will host the event with performances from Steve Rimmer, Lois Mills, Jack Gleadow, Gary Jennison and David Smith. As a special treat there will be a headline set from Angelos Epithemiou.

Come and spend some time with Angelos Epithemiou as he guides us all through this difficult period in the history of our planet. Nothing is off the agenda, North Korea, Trump, Brexit. Angelos tackles it all head on! He also does jokes and there is an opportunity to have a sing along with him, should you play your cards right

Bill Bailey: Larks In Transit

Larks in Transit is a compendium of travellers’ tales and the general shenanigans of twenty years as a travelling comedian.

With musical virtuosity, surreal tangents and trademark intelligence, Bill Bailey tackles politics, philosophy and the pursuit of happiness.

Plus, he fashions a symphony from a ringtone, tells the real story of Old McDonald, and a re-imagines the Stars and Stripes.

Two decades of touring larks from a comic described by the Daily Telegraph as ‘the brainiest comic of his generation’.

Seann Walsh: After This One, I’m Going Home

Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee and the self-dubbed “Lie-In King”, Seann Walsh is “unquestionably the best observational comic of his generation (The Guardian).

Returning from his run in America, where he made his USA television debut appearance on Conan, Seann Walsh is back on tour in the UK.

This disheveled, fiery, animated, fiercely idle, millennial man child is one of best live comedians to have come out of the UK.

Seann made his acting debut starring in Comedy Central’s sitcom Big Bad World, this was quickly followed up by the lead role in Monks (BBC One), he utilized his physical comedic abilities in Sky’s silent comedy, Three Kinds of Stupid, which led to him producing, writing and starring in his own silent comedy web-series The Drunk.

He also wrote and starred in his own Sky short for Sky Arts and is now co-starring in Jack Dee’s brand-new sitcom Bad Move (ITV one). He recently made his feature film debut as the children’s nemesis in family film, 2:hrs. Seann is quickly on his way to becoming one of the UK’s best comedy character actors.

Marcus Brigstocke: Devil May Care

A new stand up show from multi-award winning comedian Marcus Brigstocke.

As we divide each other up into more and more unpleasant categories of evil, it is time to establish, once and for all, what is good and what is bad. Who better to arbitrate in these challenging divisive times than Lucifer himself?

The Devil no longer runs Hell day to day. He’s retired now and plays Golf at Mar-a-Lago, but the Dark Lord is still on the board of The Underworld, and attends a bi-annual meeting to advise on how to make eternal damnation sustainably hot, how to keep a thousand minions on a zero hours contract, and what to do about Jacob Rees Mogg.

Jeremy Hardy

Jeremy Hardy is in his 4th decade as a stand-up this year. That’s a more dramatic way of saying he started 34 years ago and, without a lottery win, probably has at least another 34 years to go.

In 2014, the tenth series of Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation was broadcast on Radio 4 and more recently his brand-new series Jeremy Hardy Feels It. He is also well known for his appearances on The News Quiz and I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.

He is also on the road all year round and has never stopped doing live shows since 1984. He’s continuing his tour this autumn!

Dave Johns

Dave Johns is one of the most respected and best-loved stand up comics working today.

He has appeared as a guest on some of the nations best love comedy Panel shows including 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Never Mind The Buzzcocks and As Yet Untitled, hosted by Alan Davies.

Dave is also a multi-award-winning film actor, starring in what critics have described as one of the most important, hard-hitting and devastatingly moving films of 2016, Ken Loach’s I Daniel Blake, which won the coveted Palme D’or award at the Cannes film festival 2016, plus picking up numinous film awards worldwide.

Chris Ramsey

Critically acclaimed and award winning Stand Up comedian, host of his own TV entertainment show and Stand Up show on Comedy Central, Celebrity Juice regular and the only person to ever put Katie Hopkins in her place; Chris Ramsey brings his 2018 live tour to Hull City Hall.