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The most recent time I stretched the scope of this blog to discuss comedy it was to talk about last year’s Laughs in the Park. Amongst the various acts was Adam Riches, someone I had never heard of but who turned out to be the highlight of the day. I swore back then in July 2011 that “if Adam Riches does a gig near me, I’m there.” Adam Riches has since won the Edinburgh Comedy Award at last year’s fringe festival and currently has a month-long stay at the Soho Theatre. Naturally I went along to see if he was as good as I remembered.

Adam Riches is a unique act; he never introduces himself or appears on-stage out of character, instead introducing himself as a series of characters, each more eccentric than the last. To go into too much detail about the characters and sketches would be to ruin the show, and frankly the sketches spiral so far out of control that I’d struggle to fully describe them and you might think I was making bits up. I will say that at one point the entire audience was in danger of getting a tennis ball in the face.

What Adam Riches has become known for is instilling fear in his small, vulnerable audience of just 150 comedy fans. The fear comes from Riches reliance on audience participation, for each of his sketches to work Riches must pluck at least one audience member from the crowd and gradually push them further out of their comfort zone. It was amazing to watch as not one of the selected few managed to resist their call to the stage, perhaps it was because Riches never asks, but simply demands, to be joined on-stage or maybe because we all knew deep down that to say no would ruin the show for everyone else. Whether they were riding lizards on skateboard or giving Riches a drink “as starlings do”, the unlucky chosen audiences members threw themselves into their roles.

Despite the perpetual sense of fear instilled in me by the possibility of having to go on-stage, Adam Riches was overwhelmingly funny. I laughed so hard I made noises I had never heard before and at one point tried to catch my breath mid-laugh, inhaled far too hard and almost killed myself in the process by inhaling my entire face. Adam Riches was so funny it was bad for my health.

I can’t recommend Bring Me the Head of Adam Riches enough, though for safety would suggest you sit near the back and in the middle of a row. What you get for your money is an hour filled with bizarre, insane comedy which can only truly be enjoyed when experienced live in a small theatre.

Bring Me the Head of Adam Riches is at the Soho Theatre until 17th March.

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Over 12 years since their last cinematic release, and over 30 years since The Muppet Show finished on the small screen, the Muppets have split up, their studios have fallen into disrepair and Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) wants to buy the land to drill for oil. Enter Walter (a puppet/Muppet?) and Gary (Jason Segel), a pair of brothers determined to help reunite the Muppets and raise the $10 million they need to save their studio. Given two hours of primetime TV to hold a telethon by a desperate studio exec (Rashida Jones), the gang have just days to put together a revival of The Muppet Show.

Amy Adams is also in the cast as Gary’s fiancée in a wholly redundant sub-plot about nothing much at all, but I’ll mostly be ignoring that part of the film. Other criticisms (let’s get them out of the way) include the fact that the premise of a telethon allows for a few too many brief celebrity cameos, and that some jokes are better in the set-up than the execution – the Muppet collecting montage is a prime example. The Muppets is also guilty of overusing green screen to get the Muppets in a variety of locations and doing things impossible for a puppet to do. I understand this can save time and money but it also takes away from the rustic charm of the Muppets.

Griping over.

At its heart The Muppets is one great big love letter to the Muppets. The film is a celebration of our favourite felt-based friends and acknowledges the TV and film heritage they have created. This is most evident in this instalment’s connections to 1979′s The Muppet Movie, not only is one song from this film reprised on-stage but the Standard Rich and Famous Contract, which the Muppets receive at the end of The Muppet Movie, serves as the Maguffin in The Muppets. This is roughly as intellectual as I can get.

Present but never overused is the standard Muppet meta-humour, the characters are aware that this is a film, and after the disappointment of Muppets from Space, the songs are back. And what amazing songs! Man or Muppet truly deserves to win the Oscar for Best Original Song. It is clear that Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords wrote the songs as they have that distinct Conchordian sound, and are all the better for it. My acid test for a musical is whether or not the songs are in my head the next day, and Man or Muppet was ringing loud and clear in my brain for the rest of the week. Job done.

There is so much to love about this film that the few flaws are easily forgiven and The Muppets ends up being a superior production to the early Muppet films it is paying tribute to. I left the cinema with a massive grin on my face, a song in my heart and a skip in my step. There was also a book in my bag, but this is unrelated.

The Muppets is a joy, made for the fans but surely just as enjoyable for the uninitiated.

Only one question remains about The Muppets, where the hell was Rizzo!?

Muppet Movie Ranking:
1. The Muppet Christmas Carol
2. Muppet Treasure Island
3. The Muppets
4. The Muppets Take Manhattan
5. The Great Muppet Caper
6. The Muppet Movie
7. Muppets from Space

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Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (Selected Picturehouse venues)
Famous for making B-movies such as Attack of the Crab Monsters and Swamp Women, director/producer/writer Roger Corman is a Hollywood legend with an alternative method to making movies. This documentary explores Corman’s unique approach and includes contributions from Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Jack Nicholson, Ron Howard and William Shatner.

In The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel eight British pensioners are tempted away from their native country with the promise of a free flight to India and the chance to live out their retirements in a luxury hotel. On arrival they find the hotel is in disrepair and run by a young man called Sonny (Dev Patel). Over time the group grow to either love or loathe their new home, Sonny battles to keep his vision of an extraordinary retirement home afloat and each senior citizen goes on their own unique journey.

With such a large cast of British acting royalty the film is at risk of feeling fragmented as at least seven separate stories are told, but somehow it works. The various characters are each seeking something different; a lost love, sex, life after the loss of a partner, a new hip, a rich husband or to save their marriage. What links them together, and highlights their differences, is India itself. The country is photographed beautifully and the film is filled with vibrant colours, a myriad of sounds, and various exotic smells. Perhaps the smells were only in my mind. The characters learn to cope with their new surroundings with varying degrees of success, some thriving amongst the new experiences and others shying away from the terrifying world outside the hotel.

The various story threads bring with them a nice mix of humour, drama and even a little romance. The trailer may have sold the film as a slightly faster paced comedy than it is, but The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel still has plenty of laughs spread across its running time. What the film also offers, that perhaps the trailer does not showcase enough, is plenty of heartfelt moments and plots that go a little deeper than most light comedies allow. It doesn’t hurt that every role is filled by a beloved British face, from Judi Dench to Maggie Smith, from Bill Nighy to Tom Wilkinson, and from Penelope Wilton to Celia Imrie. With talent like this given the rare opportunity to strut their stuff in leading roles the two-hour running time flies by and at the end I wanted to check into the Marigold Hotel and stay a little while longer.

With an older cast and a gentler approach to comedy than is normally seen on the big screen, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is not going to excite everyone. I overheard a fellow critic at my screening suggesting that perhaps it would be preferred by an older audience, but speaking as a 23-year-old I recommend this film as proof that you don’t have to be the same age as the cast to find this film funny.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a gentle comedy with a lot of heart. The visuals were stunning and cast of British legends were wonderful to watch in their element. It was enough to make me want to whisk Judi Dench off to India and retire in a dilapidated hotel.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is on general release on 24th February 2012.

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What follows is an entirely unhelpful rundown of this week’s releases. I had a Red Bull earlier in the day if that helps explain things.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
The Cage is back as Johnny Blaze, a man who occasionally becomes little more than a flaming skull riding around on a motorbike – and he’s the good guy. While InterRailing in Europe (maybe) Johnny Blaze is called to action to help stop the devil taking human form. If there’s one thing worse than disembodied evil, it’s embodied evil, presumably. HIS HEAD IS ON FIRE! IN 3D!

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
I’ve been trying to figure out why this film feels so familiar to me, then I realised that I’m constantly being told (at home, at work, on the Tube), “Tim, you are extremely loud and incredibly close, please step back.” But this film is not about my lack of respect for vocal moderation and personal space, wonderful though that film would be, instead we have a story about a young boy who is looking for a lock to go with the key left behind by his father who died during 9/11. The reviews have been brutal, but not as brutal as having me standing next to you on a train, explaining directly to your eardrum why Footloose is the greatest film ever made.

The Woman in the Fifth (limited release)
Having the most awkward film title of the week the same day that Hadewijch comes out is quite an achievement. Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas play a scandalised lecturer and widow/potential murderer who meet in Paris and get romantically entangled.

Position Among the Stars (limited release)
“Through the eyes of grandmother Rumidjah, a poor old Christian woman living in the slums of Jakarta, we see the economical changing society of Indonesia and the influence of globalization reflected in the life of her juvenile granddaughter Tari and her sons Bakti and Dwi.”

ID:A (limited release)
Danish film about a woman who wakes up in a river with no memory and is forced to run from mysterious strangers and try to remember what is going on. We’ve all been there, I’ll never forget the time I woke up as a Danish woman in a river, it took forever to get home.

Hadewijch (London West End only)
If Wikipedia is to be believed (and when it comes to film plots it really should be) this French drama, about a fanatic Christian kicked out of a nunnery for having too much blind faith, takes a crazy turn towards the end. Shame only Londoners are allowed to see it.

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