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Hugh Laurie
On Monday 2nd July 2012
The Oxford-born actor and musician Hugh Laurie is best known to English audiences for hilarious comedy turns with his partner in mirth, Stephen Fry, in classics like Bertie and Wooster. Laurie has now exceeded his popularity at home and become a huge star in the US thanks to his award winning TV series House which has earned him six Emmy award nominations and two Golden Globes across the pond. But he has another talent, one for performing classic blues songs. His "head-first plunge into the depths of New Orleans music" results in an "amazingly authentic" sound, writes Dave Gelly in The Guardian. This one night only performance at the Hammersmith Apollo sees Laurie perform R & B classics like 'St James Infirmary' and 'John Henry' from his debut album Let Them Talk.
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Comedy
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Rhod Gilbert: The Man With The Flaming Battenburg Tattoo
Starts on Thursday 5th July 2012 and ends on Saturday 7th July 2012
Welsh comedian Rhod Gilbert regularly uses his stand-up shows to vent his frustrations but in The Man with the Flaming Battenberg Tattoo, we see a more laid-back attitude. He may have let someone tattoo a Battenberg on him but that's all the flaming the new, chilled-out Rhod is doing. A regular on TV and radio shows, he has his own BBC series 'Ask Rhod Gilbert' - featuring Gilbert, Greg Davies and Lloyd Langford answering random trivia questions - and in January 2012 he began filming Series 3 of Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience, which sees him taken on jobs such as a zoo keeper and a primary school teacher. His latest nationwide tour comes to London's Hammersmith Apollo for three dates in July.
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Kevin Bridges
Starts on Friday 28th September 2012 and ends on Sunday 30th September 2012
Glaswegian comic Kevin Bridges comes to London with 'The Story Continues...' his stand-up show which tours the UK in 2012. After appearing on BBC One's Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow in 2009 Bridges hosted the Bafta nominated 'Live At The Apollo' and won the breakthrough award at the 2010 Chortle Awards. His evident popularity is bourne out by the 45,000 tickets that were snapped up on the first day his current tour went on sale. The Perrier-nominated young comedian who has become a firm fixture on TV panel shows thanks to his jet black humour from the heart of Glasgow has a 6 part BBC 1 series - 'Kevin Bridges What's The Story', confirming his promotion from 'rising' to 'established' star of British stand-up.
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Dara O Briain: Craic Dealer
Starts on Friday 19th October 2012 and ends on Saturday 27th October 2012
Following his sell out tour of the UK & Ireland in 2010, Irish funnyman Dara O Briain hits the road again with Craic Dealer, a brand new show for 2012. For four days this October the bevoweled Irish comedian will perform at the Hammersmith Apollo as part of his UK tour. The lofty Irishman is huge right now - both in stature (he measures 6'4" and has the girth to match) and in celebrity (is there anything he's not on at the moment? The Apprentice - You're Fired, Stargazing Live and the Three Men in a Boat franchise) - but this tour strips O Briain of all his baggage and lets him loose at doing what he's best at: making people laugh. The best thing is for you to forget the tired panel show (Mock The Week), the book (Tickling the English), the DVD (Dara O Briain Talks Funny), the newspaper sports column (The Guardian on Saturday) and the documentaries - forget all that chaff and go in with an open mind. "His set is a masterclass in intelligent stand-up," says The Guardian. "O Briain has a laser eye for the absurd and the spurious amid the too-much-stuff with which we shore up our hapless lives." And if anyone knows about too much stuff, it's O Briain with his multi-pie-dipping fingers and accompanying verbal diarrhoea.
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Frankie Boyle The Last Days of Sodom
Starts on Thursday 8th November 2012 and ends on Sunday 11th November 2012
With a razor sharp tongue and shamelessly controversial wit Frankie Boyle is returning to the stage with The Last Days of Sodom tour. Boyle has the ability to split an audience in seconds between those in uproarious laughter and others in awkward silence as they either shudder with disapproval or squirm as they fight the urge to laugh at what they feel they shouldn't. Never one to shy away from dangerous territory in his comedy, the Scottish comedian has previously hit the headlines as he offended audience members with a dig at those with Down Syndrome, as well as getting in hot water when he made a jibe about swimmer Rebecca Adlington's spoon face. However this hasn't stopped him from retracting his statement that 2010 would be his last tour and is now inviting only the daring to come along and indulge in some dark humour for his 2012 tour.
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Ross Noble: Mindblender
Starts on Friday 30th November 2012 and ends on Saturday 1st December 2012
After a two year break shaggy-haired comic Ross Noble is back doing what he does best with a new live tour, Mindblender. Noble is a stand-up like no other in that his shows are nearly completely ad-libbed and improvised, seeing the scruffy northerner often get lost in his own tangents with hilarious consequences. He'll segue from spotting faces in muffins to covering owls with blankets, from serving ice creams with sponge hands to covering Jack Bauer of 24 in goose fat. It's not the most linear show you'll likely to see and Ross will often be distracted by his own routine, but the journey he takes his audience on will be like none other before. "The most engaging British stand-up to have emerged since Eddie Izzard" (Daily Telegraph) and "the most brilliant stand-up of his generation" (Sunday Telegraph), Noble is "comic genius" (Evening Standard).
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Jimmy Carr: Gagging Order
Starts on Friday 26th April 2013 and ends on Saturday 27th April 2013
The hardest working man in comedy, Jimmy Carr, brings his acerbic (and often vile) scattergun gags to venues across London in 2012 and 2013 as part of his new Gagging Order
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Dance
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Flawless And English National Ballet: Time Is Of The Essence
Starts on Friday 1st June 2012 and ends on Saturday 2nd June 2012
The world of ballet and street dance come together in this collaborative dance-theatre show, created by Marlon ' 'Swoosh' Wallen and Jenna Lee.
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Theatre
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American Idiot
Starts on Tuesday 4th December 2012 and ends on Sunday 16th December 2012
When Green Day's Grammy award-winning multi-platinum album American Idiot was released in 2004, the unique 'rock opera' format drew many to lament the fact that it wasn't actually a stage production. Well, worry no longer. Based around songs from both American Idiot and the subsequent album 21st Century Breakdown, the show tells the captivating story of three lifelong friends and their quest to escape the safety of post 9/11 suburbia. The show has been described by The New York Times as "thrilling" and "emotionally charged" and there's even a feature film version in development, produced by Tom Hanks.
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| Hammersmith Apollo
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| 45 Queen Caroline Street, London |
| Travel: Hammersmith tube station |
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Once London's largest all-seater venue, the Hammersmith Apollo has a 3,600 capacity for seated shows and a 5,000 capacity for standing-room-only gigs. It was renovated in 2002, and now works well as a venue for theatre (hosting a huge variety of shows from Riverdance to Thomas the Tank Engine) as well as rock concerts. It has been the scene of some famous rock concerts including gigs by the Beatles, David Bowie and Queen and does a strong line in comedy - it's where Live at the Apollo, screened on BBC1, is recorded. Its visually challenged exterior (not helped by its poluted location on the busy Hammersmith roundabout) disguises an impressive art deco auditorium - when it was built in the 1930s its original purpose was a cinema and it still features the original 1932 Compton pipe organ.
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