US comic hits Hammersmith this August

Ali Wong has announced two London gigs this summer.

The US comic will interrupt her 19-city North America tour to play two shows at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, at 5.30pm and 9pm on August 12.

The comic shot to fame with the 2013 Netflix special Baby Cobra, filmed when she was seven months pregnant with her first child. She followed it up with Hard Knock Wife in 2018 and Don Wong last year.

She has also written for ABC sitcom Fresh off the Boat and co-wrote and starred in the rom-com movie Always Be My Maybe – but is now enjoying renewed success in Beef, Netflix’s dark comedy drama which has amassed more than 186 million hours viewed since its April debut.

But in a cover interview for Variety last week she said she had returned to stand-up because ‘the worry is that that muscle atrophies — you can lose it if you don’t put the reps in.’

And she added that she was having to make changes because she wrote the material about being single, but is now in a relationship with fellow comic Bill Hader.

She said: For me, stand-up is still an abstraction of truth - it does not represent the whole me [But] out of respect for my relationship, I have to practise putting them [the routines] in the past tense.’

Tickets for her London dates go on general sale at 10am on Friday.

Published: 6 Jun 2023