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Bit parts: Garry Starr Performs Everything @swkplay

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Garry Starr Performs Everything is a bare-bones (and bare buttocks) tribute to the theatre. Theatre may be in trouble, and audiences are down, but Garry Starr aims to save the theatre and bring back to the masses every style of theatre possible. As long as each style involves wearing a transparent white leotard or a skimpy thong. And tassels. It's part comedy, part physical comedy and part perv at Gary's physical prowess. The sentiment "if you've got it, flaunt it" applies here. So here we are with a show that has been around for some years and is having its first proper London run at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) through Christmas. The premise is that Garry Starr (played by Damien Warren-Smith) has left the Royal Shakespeare Company over artistic differences. He is now on a mission to save the theatre from misrepresentation and worthy interpretations by doing things such as a two-minute Hamlet, recreating scenes from a Pinter play using unsuspecting audience

Another take: This Comedian @EmbassyTea


Idil Sukan’s debut exhibition, This Comedian, is now at the Embassy Tea Gallery through to 8 March.

It is a retrospective of her creative work in production, design and photography in the comedy industry. The varied collection from the last decade includes 200 of Idil's portraits and photographs of live performance.


It includes comedians Eddie Izzard, Clive Anderson and Paul Merton (whose newly-released autobiography Only When I Laugh has as its front cover Idil’s most recent portrait of him); as well as performers who appear in comedy sitcoms and films, such as Patrick Stewart and Michael Gambon; and recent breakthrough artists such as Bridget Christie, Daniel Rigby, Sara Pascoe and James Acaster.

Honing her skills at the Edinburgh Festival, Sukan has been one of the most successful and prolific photographers and designers at the Festival in the last ten years. Traditional curatorial displays and marketing devices such as wall-to-wall poster coverage are recreated here. It is impressive and varied collection of visual marketing and documented portraiture. Worth a look and admission is free.

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