The best of the week's live comedy

The week's best live comedy.

Sunday April 28

LONDON: Not only a rare club date for Daniel Kitson as he hosts  Up The Creek’s Sunday Special in Greenwich but he introduces a strong bill, too, namely Nina Conti, Lucy Pearman, Joe Hobbs and Sarah Keyworth. Tickets.

LONDON: He’s been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons - which could jeopardise Barry Humphries’s legacy as comedy pioneer and a brilliantly funny performer. Rob Brydon will surely be concentrating on the latter when he interviews the Dame Edna creator at the London Palladium tonight. Tickets

Monday April 29

LONDON: The comedy community pulls out all the stops for a benefit for the victims of the Christchurch terrorist attack, with big-hitters such as  Russell Howard, Sarah Millican and Al Murray being joined at the Hackney Empire by a line-up which features a number of Kiwi and Muslim acts, among others. They are:  Al Pitcher, Guz Khan, Jarred Christmas, Javier Jarquin, Mo Gilligan, Nabil Abdulrashid, Omid Djalili, Shazia Mirza, Tez Ilyas, Fatiha El-Ghorri, Matt Stellingwerf.

LONDON: The Backyard Comedy Club in Bethnal Green hosts a fine fundraiser for another fine cause, Help Refugees.  Tim Key,Aisling Bea and Ellie Taylor are the big names, with  Abigoliah Schamaun,, Brett Goldstein ,Rhys James, Spencer Jones and Twayna Mayne making for a varied night out.

YORK: Danny Baker extends his entertaining storytelling tour, entitled Good Time Charlie's Back, with a new batch of gigs starting at York’s Grand Opera House. Tour dates.

Wednesday May 1

CRAWLEY: Probably the hardest-working man in comedy, Jimmy Carr somehow finds time between all his TV hosting duties to embark on another tour, Terribly Funny. And as if to head off any criticism about being in poor taste in advance, the blurb warns that the show ‘contains jokes about all kinds of terrible things. Terrible things that might have affected you or people you know and love. But they’re Just Jokes - they are not the terrible things. Jokes are little lies. Nothing more than wonderful, funny, joyful tricks, constructed from language’.  Tour dates

HALIFAX: No such fears with Deborah Frances-White’s Guilty Feminist show, which strives to be woke af, even if - as the title implies - everyone is fallible and liable to slip up… it’s the intent that’s important. In each show, which will not be recorded for the top-rated podcast, she’ll be joined by comics, musicians and local activists to discuss the topics facing us today. Opening night Victoria Theatre features Sindhu Vee, Alison Spittle, Kemah Bob and Jess Robinson.Tour dates.

LONDON: Dane Baptiste, Ed Gamble, Lou Sanders,Rhys James and Tez Ilyas play EartH in Hackney in aid of Farm Africa.

Thursday May 2

HASTINGS: Reginald D Hunter kicks off on a new tour, An American Facing The Beast And Niggas, marking his 20th year as a comic working in the UK - and in which he claims to have all the answers to an increasingly polarised society. Tour dates

Friday May 3

MACHYNLLETH:  Wales’s favourite boutique comedy festival returns for the weekend, with the likes of Josh Widdicombe, Mark Watson, Lolly Adefope and Max & Ivan playing the opening night, just some of the hundreds of shows across town in the coming days. Website.

AMERSHAM: A much smaller festival at the Potters Arms features  Andy Parsons, Russell Hicks, Steve Gribbin  and Susan Murray tonight, Ed Byrne and more tomorrow, and the Comedy Store Players improv team on Sunday.

ST ANDREWS:  Leah MacRae, star of BBC’s River City, Gary Tank Commander and the stage comedy 51 Shades Of Maggie, starts a Scottish tour of stories and songs from her My Big Fat Fabulous Diary at the Byre Theatre. Dates

• Search our full listings for comedy near you using the pull-down menus on the left of this page.

Published: 28 Apr 2019