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June 21, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Stubs: # 259 – James Acaster, Wellington, 2019

It really became impossible for me to review comedy – the Comedy Festival turned very sour, or the acts involved in it did – or both. And then the newspaper wouldn’t send me along because I was too hard to get in the door (not due to my size, btw).

And it has become harder to review comedy for relevancy too – it was always a weird thing to do but with audience members ruining it by bad heckling, phone-filming and Twitter the secrets were often out before a review; not that I was ever trying to reveal secrets or ruin shows with my comedy reviews – I was about trying to place it in a context. And I found audiences less and less interested in that. The Netflix comedy specials have killed the live reviews. Everyone’s an expert and can supply their own context. A good context for comedy – the best – is simply: WAS IT FUNNY?

Anyway I always try to get along to see James Acaster. He’s become my annual one-stop at the Comedy Festival Shop. Loved his show in 2016. And so went again in 2019 – but wrote a pretty poor review; by which I mean it was a lame piece of writing. Said nothing. Didn’t need to happen. Still at least I didn’t give the game away.

And it was fun to see comedy in a new venue!

Acaster’s Netflix specials are ace by the way. Still working my way through them all…
Stubs is an occasional feature here at Off The Tracks – looking back through the ticket-stub box and remembering how the show went down. 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Blog, Miscellany and tagged with 2019, British, Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999, Comedian, Comedy, Comedy Festival, Comedy Review, Gig Review, James Acaster, Live Comedy, Stand Up, Stand-up Comedy, Stub, Stubs, Stubs # 259, Stubs: # 259 – James Acaster, Te Auaha, UK, Wellington, Wgtn. RSS 2.0 feed.
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Off The Tracks is the home of Sweetman Podcast, a weekly interview/chat-based pod. It's also home to my reviews across film, TV, music and books and some creative writing as well.

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