MALE ORDER COMEDY

Comedian Geoff Schumann rolls up his ample sleeves and pitches into the sex war this week with Waiting to Inhale (below), a new character- based sketch show parodying Whitney Houston's women-bitching-about-men movie, Waiting to Exhale. Before launching himself on the comedy circuit, Schumann spent seven years teaching sociology at Acton High School, an experience which gave him not only the skills for observational humour but "a captive audience until three thirty every afternoon". Conversationally, waiting for Schumann to inhale is a thankless exercise. The man mountain talks a million miles a minute and audiences get their ears chewed about everything from virginity, pregnancy and PMT to why it is all black women want a guy like Alan from East Enders. ("He makes Frank Bruno look like a streetwise raggamuffin, doesn't he?"). So is Schumann getting his own back on women? "I'm not being nasty," he insists, "I'm just trying to redress the balance, explain things from the male perspective." The debate on the gender divide will run and run, but Schumann's comedy proves that confessional incontinence, at least, is an equal opportunity sport.

Theatre Royal, Stratford East, Gerry Raffles Square, London E15 (0181- 534 0310) to 17 May