The Return Of Boothby Graffoe  - ON TOUR

For other special appearances of the elusive Graffoe please visit the LIVE section of this web site.

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Boothby Graffoe at the Glasgow Comedy Festival
Live Review - CHORTLE
Glasgow Stand  

Many of the headliners of the Glasgow Comedy Festival are of a particularly spiky sort: Jerry Sadowitz, Frankie Boyle, Doug Stanhope… By way of contrast, Boothby Graffoe is about as challenging as a warm bath, infused with the Radox of whimsy.

Back on the road after a couple of years writing for Omid Djalili’s BBC One show and touring with Canadian wit-pop group The Barenaked Ladies, Graffoe shows no sign of departing from his comfortable mix of layered, folksy songwriting and arch, offbeat humour. The result is not laugh-a-minute stuff, but a richer, more comically nourishing hour.

He puts the music, not the laughs, first – although each of his lyrical tracks has a wry wit in its DNA. Graffoe revels in ambiguity – the title of his new album Songs For Dogs, Funerals… is testament to that – and the measured melodies and repetitious structure of songs allow him to tease that along.

Providing accompaniment is the multitalented Nick Pynn, whose spirited fiddling can evoke the spirit of an Irish shebeen or even the death throes of a tortured budgie. Who knew a violin could be witty? And he gets one solo moment of glory, too, the palindromic So Many Dynamos, achieved with the aid of live looping, played back in reverse – not the only time a little electronic jiggery-pokery adds an extra element to proceedings.

But mainly this is a unplugged performance, warm and enriching. The songs are inspired by folk, varying in pace from the quietly ambient to the lively toe-tapper. One about the infamous Hartlepool monkey-hanging even has the jaunty spirit of Bernard Cribbins’s Right Said Fred. The inspiration is offbeat, and while there’s more than one romantic ballad from a stalker’s point of view – that old staple of musical comedy – even here he adds unexpected twists.

Between the songs, Graffoe gives us more of his dream-like surrealism, including his old favourite trick of giving voice to his pets; his cat becoming childlike in its naïve questioning, his dog dumb but stoic. It’s therefore something of a departure when this long-time Amnesty supporter launches into a plea on behalf of Gary McKinnon, the autistic-spectrum computer hacker fighting extradition to the States after infiltrating Nasa’s systems. But just in the nick of time, the rug’s pulled away for a devastatingly effective payoff.

That’s typical of the humour in the songs, too – using compellingly descriptive language to lead the listener a very long way in one direction before the inevitable switcheroo.

As well as showcasing the new CD, this show features a couple of greatest hits, including the warmly received Kittens In A Bag and the pacy alphabet song (‘How you gonna Z if you can’t sleep’ etc…). I’d give you the title, but these tend to be standalone, longwinded thoughts with no relation to the track, as that much-loved ambiguity rears its head again.

What isn’t ambiguous is Graffoe’s linguistic and musical skill, producing an hour of atmospheric ‘mood comedy’ sure to leave you with a warm feeling inside.

 

Date of live review: Thursday 24th Mar, '11     

Review by steve Bennett

 

Comedy review: Boothby Graffoe

By JAY RICHARDSON

BOOTHBY GRAFFOE
THE STAND, GLASGOW

 

BOOTHBY Graffoe's long-awaited return to touring is a cause for immense cheer, because there's no-one quite like him. Performing a mix of tracks from new album, Songs For Dogs, Funerals … and some older numbers, with the help of multi-instrumentalist Nick Pynn, he reiterated his brand of low-key, whimsical folk, pithy one-liners and diversions into philosophical surrealism, largely on behalf of cats and dogs.

Graffoe is no mean guitarist but Pynn, who demonstrated his chops with a palindromic tune on the Appalachian mountain dulcimer no less, afforded his endearing humour strong backing, even reproducing on the violin the wail of a cat protesting its neutering.

 

Graffoe's pet preoccupation and folky arrangements were exquisitely contrasted with nature's capacity to turn violent and a couple of songs indulging stalker fantasies. Even with this staple of musical comedy, the melodic strumming contrasting with the increasingly deranged lyrics, Graffoe proved himself a master, adding delightful imagery and twist upon twist.

 

Obtuse song titles, such as What We Applaud In Disney Films We Would Kill People For Attempting In Reality, reinforced the theme. And if he seemed to indulge in a bit of agitprop – protesting Scottish computer hacker Gary McKinnon's extradition to the US or evoking police brutality statistics – there were gags at the end to assuage any temporary charges of humourlessness. Warm, relaxing and entertaining throughout, Graffoe's comic instincts and ear for a tune have rare symbiosis.

 

The Times

Comedy

Boothby Graffoe

South Street, Reading

The man with the guitar and the quirky lyrics is back. Three years ago Boothby Graffoe seemed ready to bow out as a comic, preferring to focus in writing for Omid Djalili. Fortunately, he seems to have had a change of heart. The world would be a poorer place without his eccentric turn of phrase.

A typically unpredictable album, Songs for dogs, funerals... has been released in time for his comeback tour, the Seventies veteran Dean Friedman making a cameo appearance in the studio. Another of Graffoe’s collaborators, the unassuming multi-instrumentalist Nick Pynn, accompanies him on-stage: as well as adding subtle texture to the songs, he comes close to stealing tyhe show with folksy musical interludes on violin, guitar and Appalachian dulcimer.

As ever, Graffoe, a figure with a lugubrious manner of a long-serving roadie, wanders in all directions, adding throwaway stand-up lines while tuning up and saying tantalisingly little about his recent absence. He also delves into a haunting number which must be a contender for the longest title in singer-songwriterdom: What We Applaud in Disney Films We Would Kill People for Attempting in Reality.

Along with the routine America-bashing (it is the home of the fat, in case you didn’t know) Graffoe adds a smattering of political commentary, and in Hartlepool embarks on a jaunty re-telling of the tale of the shipwrecked monkey hanged as a French spy during the Napoleonic wars. Still, he seems happiest retreating to the home and hearth, casting a quizzical eye over subjects as mundane as cat food. Yet there are shadows in the unlikeliest places, Kittens in a Bag being a typical example. Even a ditty about a budgie has a Hitchcock-like twist to it.

At the very end of the night, one of his sturdiest fantasies, Umbrella Head Boy, made a welcome appearance. Graffoe remains an engaging companion, his musical tastes are never conventional and the occasional false start is all part of his charm.

Clive Davis.

 

‘I've been listening to this album all week...I love it!’

Claudia Winkleman, BBC Radio2  

 

Boothby Graffoe’s CD Songs for dogs, funerals...’ is out now. The Return Of Boothby Graffoe tour begins on Tuesday 1st March. Rare among comedy singer-songwriters in that he’s not intensely twee and annoying.

Stephen Armstrong, The Sunday Times, Culture Section (Must Sees & The Critical List)

Boothby is a lyrical humorist with refined musical sensibility.

Looking like a younger, less malevolent Jeremy Paxman, he forged a career in stand-up where his guitar interludes gradually became the show with mere comedy decorations. I.C.C.E. (baby) fuses African jit guitar into a petrol-head rant, and the album features the best Anglified appropriation of such influences since Malcolm McLaren's Buffalo Gals.

These songs are lyrically razor sharp and socially brutal, from Thank Your Insulin to What We Applaud In Disney Films We Would Kill People For Attempting In Reality.

"Once is a mistake, twice is jazz," he sings. Refreshingly original.

«««« Colin Somerville for The Scotsman

‘If you haven’t come across Boothby Graffoe before, this album will serve as an ideal introduction to the comedian’s downbeat but decidedly daft outlook on life. If you’re already a convert, then you’ll simply be delighted to have him back. What he tends to do is take mundane topics and push them to bizarre extremes. So here he sings of a stalker whose love for a women in  a pet shop leads him to witness the ritual slaughter of a defenceless budgie; adopts the persona of an American evangelist with a very unorthodox message; and offers a rambunctious showstopper dedicated to the glories of the town of Hartlepool. It’s low key but very entertaining stuff, and with the track What We Applaud In Disney Films we Would Kill People For Attempting In Reality, Graffoe may just have come up with the most intriguing song title of 2011.’

The Guardian (comedy pick of the week)

 

 

 

Boothby is BACK......with music  and  his own uniquely warped view of life.

Ably abetted by the talented multi instrumentalist Nick Pynn.     .......so there.