The Definitive Guide to Comedy
**** 1/2 (out of 5) Easter weekend and Ramadan coinciding with the start of the Melbourne festival felt fortuitous for visiting American stand-ups Joel Kim Booster and Zainab Johnson, who are co-headlining a run for the first half of the fest. It also helps that Booster and Johnson have both …
Congrats to this year’s crop of comedians Variety will toast at Just For Laughs as its 10 Comics to Watch for 2019! They are, with descriptions provided by Variety: Fahim Anwar – Recently seen in the Comedy Central special “Goatface” with his comedy group of the same name, his special “Fahim …
I have some problems with Unprotected Sets. Not a big fan of the title. Definitely not a fan of the promotional poster and imaging, which doubles down on the sexual innuendo by giving you the impression that stand-up comedy is best represented by a bunch of attacking sperm. Unless you …
Zainab Johnson grew up Muslim with lots of siblings. But you may not recognize her if you’d seen her for the seven years she walked around with a shaved head. Yes, there’s a lot to cover here, and Johnson does in this set from Thursday’s Late Night with Seth Meyers. …
Zainab Johnson had other plans for her life, perhaps professional basketball or teaching, before a tragic accident changed her life and her worldview. Johnson tells me how she absorbed the lessons of the comedians she hung out with before jumping into comedy herself. So far, so good. After being named …
After successfully reviving Cash Cab this month with original host Ben Bailey accompanied by celebrity cameos in his NYC taxi cab, the Discovery series has launched an online companion game show, set in an elevator. Cash Lift, hosted by comedians Alex Weber and Zainab Johnson, who surprise hotel guests. They’re …
All Def Comedy, the latest stand-up comedy project from executive producer Russell Simmons, will premiere Saturday Nov. 12, 2016, on HBO. Tony Rock hosts the one-hour special, with DJ Drama and performances from Chris Powell, Zainab Johnson, Kevin Tate, and Robert Powell, as well as HBO’s Def Comedy Jam veteran Tony …
For all of the artificial and natural word-of-mouth buzz that happens each July in Montreal, perhaps the most likely to produce buzz event of Just For Laughs is the New Faces Unrepped showcase. All of these stand-up comedians arrived in Montreal a week and a half ago without agents or …
On Monday night, Montreal’s Just For Laughs and ComedyPro Conference announced most of the New Faces of Comedy for this week’s festivities. Generations of stand-up comedians have regarded New Faces as a stepping-stone to something bigger, in part because the festival and because the industry long treated it as such. …
Are you ready for the second half of our semifinals in season eight of NBC’s Last Comic Standing? Ready or not, here it comes. And this time, the remaining semifinalists only have one mentor to guide them and advise them. Sorry, no Amy Schumer in the house at the Jon …
