It’s 1962, in the dressing rooms of the Producers Studio where Warner Bros’ B movies used to be churned out. Two apparently washed up women apply make-up, telephone outrageous demands and reminisce. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford are over as far as Hollywood is concerned, they haven’t had a hit since the 1950s and having committed the heinous crime of crossing the age of 40, this is their last chance to reclaim their former glory. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Time was when Joan Crawford didn’t even have to get out of bed for an Oscar. Bette Davis was rewarded for her lack of vanity and bitch roles with 2 Oscars and 8 nominations. Unofficially this should be at 9 Academy Award nominations; Bette Davis’ role in Of Human Bondage inspired a campaign to have her included. 

Egusi Soup is a West African Soup which is thickened with ground seeds, there is much local variation within the dish. It is also the name of Janice Okoh’s play and centres around a Nigerian family who are packing for a trip back to Lagos. They are travelling back to Nigeria to attend the first year memorial service of their departed father and husband.

Mr Anyia is gone but certainly not forgotten, Mrs Anyia wears a photo of him on her commemorative t-shirt and his absence is made tangible by an empty leather chair in the corner of the room. No-one is allowed to sit on the chair as it has not “even been up to a year” since he died.

It’s well established that the British have an Oo-er Matron relationship with sex. At first this was interpreted as an uptight and knicker-clad nation, but the statistics and Lovehoney.co.uk profits are in and we are a filthy nation of mail orderers. The Channel 4 documentary More Sex Please, We’re British delved deeper into the engorged demand for sex toys in this country.

During the documentary the employees of Lovehoney give us insights into the sex toy industry such as “Monday mornings are busiest maybe they’re hornier on a Monday I don’t know.” We also learn that Lovehoney sold 41km of plastic penises last year, “that’s almost a marathon” in case you couldn’t fathom that. 

Admit it; you watched BBC 3 make-under show Snog, Marry, Avoid. I don’t blame you, it was a peculiarly compelling format. Girl gets filmed applying make-up, slapping on fake tan and wearing more pairs of false eyelashes than she has eyes. Girl then takes BBC 3 cameras out with her to da club on a mission to seduce men, ending the night with a kebab and the claim that POD (the Personal Overhaul Device – look, go with it) could never change her. Cue the Snog, Marry, Avoid test, a beanie hat and weepy admission they no longer wanted to attract footballers or ‘players’.

Snog, Marry, Avoid styled itself as the first make-under show, although it was not as modern or progressive as it claimed. The message was these (occasionally fluorescent) girls would be a lot happier were they to rid themselves of fakery and become Plain Jane and settle for an Average Joe who will marry her now. Essentially BBC 3 managed to get 4 series out of an idea based on a great aunt’s fondness for spitting on her hanky and wiping it around her “such a pretty girl, once” niece’s face. 

“Be careful, Brighton. Some of the jokes are traps.” Watching Stewart Lee isn’t like going to see any other stand-up. The audience cannot sit back and expect to be entertained, oh no, they’re made to work hard – and have to be on guard at all times. No lazy, easy observational jokes here, save for the opening few minutes of token news-based satire to parody the style of comedy that less imaginative, yet more successful, comedians might peddle.

In fact, success is a taboo that casts a vulgar shadow over proceedings for Stew, formerly more used to small club venues with crowds of devotees attuned to his slow, deconstructionist shows, than playing to large audiences in theatres such as this. Consequently he tests and tortures, dividing the audience by ability to follow his dense, splenetic routines; playing them off against each other and insisting that this “isn’t for you” to those found wanting. This is ostensibly aimed at weeding out the “Jimmy Carr fans” that might have unknowingly strayed into his orbit since winning a British Comedy Award, expecting him to “notice things”, like what Michael McIntyre or one of the Russell comics that they have now might do. Of course, this is all part of his onstage persona, but it makes for a provocative live experience all the same.