comedy

  • Sharknado!

    2013 was a watershed moment for disaster films. While many folks were updating their anti-Zombie kits some of us were shopping for chain saws in case the absolute worst-case came to be – a Sharknado. This terrifying premise is exactly what it sounds like – a huge Oz-level tornado sucks up sharks (and only sharks)… Continue reading

  • The Inimitable P.G. Wodehouse

    P G Wodehouse was a prolific writer, with nearly all of his stories set among British aristocracy and/or in the proverbial ‘polite society’ of 1920s and 30s Britain. Knowingly or not, he somewhat reflected the naïve obliviousness of a few of his characters in his real life. After moving to France and being captured by… Continue reading

  • Three Classic British Sketch Comedy Shows

    During the same period they were bringing Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster to the small screen, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie were sprinkling the British airwaves with their own sketch comedy show A Bit of Fry and Laurie. If you ever thought to yourself, as I have, “Is there any such thing as ‘highbrow absurdist humor’?”… Continue reading

  • Leading Ladies of British Comedy

    The Vicar of Dibley – Reverend Geraldine Granger is assigned to the small Oxfordshire village of Dibley, its first female vicar following the Church of England’s quite tardy change of heart regarding the ordination of women. Offering spiritual guidance to the tiny town’s cast of oddballs, the vicar negotiates her way around and through entrenched… Continue reading

  • One Season Wonders (kind of…)

    At Last the 1948 Show (1967)  Prior to 1967 it was a dark time. Comedy hadn’t yet been invented and the population was just starting to accept the world becoming colorized after thousands of years being a nice, calm, black and white. Enter two scholars from Cambridge, John Cleese and Graham Chapman. Well, them and… Continue reading

  • Seattle Rep’s DRY POWDER: Beyond the Theater

    Seattle Repertory Theatre presents DRY POWDER by Sarah Burgess from March 17 – April 15, 2017. Set in the top echelons of today’s morally-compromised financial sector, this dark comedy explores the uneasy relationship between being good and doing well. Librarians at Seattle Public Library created this list of books, CDs and films to enhance your experience of the show: Seattle… Continue reading

  • Movie Mondays: What’s So Funny about Sports?

    I love comedies. I don’t love sports. But I do love the sports comedy sub-genre. These four films rise to the top of the ranks in my book (along with the best sports comedy ever, Caddyshack, which I’ve blogged about previously and will probably write about again). The Bad News Bears (1976) was a favorite of mine as… Continue reading

  • Jet City Improv presents Live Theatre at the Library!

    ​Posted by Elizabeth W. Come and contribute to a lively, rollicking comedy show where your participation is key! Jet City Improv’s talented performers will collect ideas from audience members to create short-form, unique sketches in a style similar to “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” This show is highly participatory and fast-paced — in order to… Continue reading

  • Movie Mondays: Kings of Comedy

    This fall we saw the publication of books about two comedy giants – the biography Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him by Henry David and the autobiography Still Foolin’ Em: Where I’ve Been, Where I’m Going, and Where the Hell are My Keys? by Billy Crystal. The following films, some of their finest and funniest, are… Continue reading

  • Sit Down with Stand-Ups

    My colleagues inform me that March is the official month of mirth, a more depressing concept I truly cannot think of. Despite my enormous reservations with such a frivolously joyful demarcation (what next, Cake and Presents Day?!?), I resign myself to acknowledging such trivialities in my role of public servant. So here we are. Mirth.… Continue reading