The comedy week ahead

The comedy week ahead – and London, at least, is packed full of special live shows...

Monday December 16

RADIO: Russell Davies interviews Matt Lucas about his career so far mixed, Desert Island Discs-style, with his favourite music. Radio 2, 11pm

LIVE IN LONDON: Breakthrough mime artist The Boy With Tape On His Face introduces – somehow – a variety bill at the Palace Theatre, packed as tightly as Chortle’s Fast Fringe. The monster line-up for the Cornucopia show includes Terry Alderton, Paul Daniels, John Moloney, Marcel Lucont, Chris Cox and genuinely too many more to list.

LIVE IN LONDON: The ever-joyous Greg Davies brings a final outing of his entertaining show The Back Of My Mum’s Head to the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank for four nights. Click here to read our review from earlier in the tour.

LIVE IN LONDON: Weirdos, a collective from the more alternative fringes of the circuit, present their annual anarchic comedy pantomime. This one is called the Colonel and it’s about ‘love, war, and chicken. . . lots of chicken’. Participants include Ben Target, Matthew Highton, Pat Cahill and Edinburgh’s best newcomer, John Kearns. It’s on for four nights at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club.

Tuesday December 17

TV: It’s the Bad Education festive special, with the pupils of Abbey Grove staging a Christmas play that’s a mashup between Nutcracker and Robocop. Look out for Greg McHugh as a Scottish tramp BBC Three. 10pm

LIVE IN LONDON: A show that probably needs no plugging for us to help sell tickets: Michael McIntyre’s Christmas Charity Show fills the Hammersmith Apollo with comics more used to filling arenas on their own: John Bishop, Russell Howard, Alan Carr, Rob Brydon and more – all in aid of Kids Company.

LIVE IN LONDON: Russell Howard also tops a bill of a more intimate benefit in aid of the Glasgow helicopter crash. London Stands Up For The Clutha has been put together by Wendy Wason and also features Phill Jupitus, Carl Donnelly, Lucy Porter and more…. 10pm at the Leicester Square Theatre.

LIVE IN BRISTOL:: A strong-line-up for the Christmas Spiegeltent gig, put together by the Batch Comedy Festival in the wooden tent erected in Waterfront Square, includes Aisling Bea, Daliso Chaponda and John Maloney.

Wednesday December 18

LIVE IN LONDON: Love him, or hate him, Jerry Sadowitz doesn’t really give a shit. He does, however, have a month-long residency also at the Leicester Square Theatre, starting tonight. It seems to be mainly sleight-of-hand magic, projected on screens for the most intricate close-up stuff, but there’s sure to be some tough humour in there, too.

Thursday December 19

LIVE IN LONDON: One for the talent-hunters, this: A fine selection of all the year’s award-winning new comedians at Chortle’s Every One’s A Winner showcase includes Edd Hedges (So You Think You’re Funny?); Larry Dean (Scottish Comedian Of The Year); Pierre Novellie (Amused Moose Laugh Off); Rio Baeur: (Chortle Student Comedy Award) and Sofie Hagen (Laughing Horse New Act of The Year). Compere is the similarly highly-tipped Aisling Bea. Tickets

Published: 15 Dec 2013