Ad Nauseam - Never a copycat be

The thing about great work in any sphere is that it inevitably inspires a slew of poor imitators. Having not so long ago praised Jacob’s for good advertising work for their Christmas campaign I’m sorry to say they haven’t kept the standards up with their most recent one. Take a look yourself, though be warned; you may have to watch it from behind a cushion: I can imagine what the client / agency meetings were like in the run up to this ads creation. I’m sure they were peppered with phrases like ‘a viral sensation’, ‘modernising the brand’, ‘advertising made for social media’, ‘creating a music video, not just an advertisement’ and the like. In short, Jacob’s are trying to pull off what Cadbury’s did with Glass & a Half Productions; create branded content that is enjoyed outside of its role as an advertisement. I’ll bet a few of the … There’s more

Comedy Review - Foil, Arms and Hog / A Betrayal of Penguins @ Whelans

  Sketch comedy can be a pretty tricky thing to get right. For every ‘The Two Ronnie’s’ you have Frankie Boyle’s ‘Tramadol Nights’ and for every two good sketches in ‘That Mitchell and Webb look’ , you have a further ten other sketches in ‘That Mitchell and Webb look’. The hardest thing about any sketch show is the hit rate of the good sketches. You could be laughing away for ages and then suddenly be met with a horrible unfunny silence that has you staring into a drink until the pain has gone away. A little bit like at a wedding where the best man suddenly decides to mention that time he thought this day would never come after he walked in on you and the butch Polish mature student back in first year during your ‘experimental’ stage. Yes, while the same applies to straight stand-up, it is a lot … There’s more