...and Nottingham Comedy Festival gets under way in the week's best live comedy

The best of the week's live comedy, picked from the 6,351 events Chortle currently has listed. Use our search panel to check our full listings by date and region.

Monday October 26

WALSALL: Barry From Watford, the 92-year-old alter-ego Alex Lowe originally created as a spoof to call into local radio phone-ins before becoming a regular on Steve Wright's Radio 2 show, begins his first-ever live tour, Shooting From The New Hip. Barry From Watford tour dates

LONDON: Alex Franklin's Kiss Me X – which we described as 'a sunny, daffy riposte to the furrowed brows that often surround trans women in the media' in our four-star review from the Edinburgh Fringe – arrives at Soho Theatre for three nights.

LONDON: Also at Soho, at a clashing time, Sophie Duker starts 12 nights of her new show, Hot Beef Injection, ahead of a UK tour from February. Promising to be both 'sexy and political' as it addresses Duker’s distrust of heterosexual men as she considers whether the best policy may be speaking to them, rather than shutting them out.  Sophie Duker tour dates.

Tuesday October 27

MANCHESTER: Another great night at XS Malarkey at 53two features Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Amy Gledhill, The Dark Room's John Robertson, sketches from Discount Comedy Checkout and regular MC Toby Hadoke. Tickets

Wednesday October 28

LONDON: Brick Lane Laughs is a new night in Ninety One, the pub within the Old Brewmaster's House of the Truman Brewery. And it is getting off to a cracking start with an opening night bill that features Ed Byrne, Milton Jones, Ninia Benjamin and Stephen K Amos.

SWANSEA: After a run of European dates, Dylan Moran kicks off the UK leg of his tour Looking for Trouble, offering another bleak philosophical assessment of the 'thousand pieces of bullshit smushed together called life'. Dylan Moran tour dates

Thursday October 29

LONDON: Adam Larter leads the Weirdos comedy collective in another low-budget, overambitious Halloween spectacular – Terror At The Haunted Starbucks – at the Museum Of Comedy from tonight until Saturday. The cast comprises Beth Story, Cerys Bradley, Charlie Miller, Charlie Vero Martin, Ellen Turnill Montoya, Jen Zheng, Kat Cade, Michael Brunström, Mikey Bligh-Smith and Yogie Belle.

LONDON: 2025's So You Think You're Funny? winner Madeleine Brettingham brings Legend, her amusing show about a not always amusing upbringing, to Soho Theatre for three nights. Read our four-star review from the Edinburgh Fringe here

Friday October 30

NOTTINGHAM: The city's comedy festival gets under way with ten days of comedy across 14 venues, with more than 130 performers including Kevin Bridges, Seann Walsh, Chloe Petts, Rachel Fairburn, Paddy Young and Arthur Smith. Website.

Saturday October 31

LONDON: Coven's a suitably Halloweeny improv show at The Free Association in Southwark. Want to hex your ex or anyone else who has wronged you? Tell the story and the team of neighbourhood witches will put things right.

LONDON: Meanwhile, at Leicester Square Theatre, 'grand frightener' Garth Marenghi presents extracts from his latest TerrorTome, This Bursted Earth. Don't have nightmares.

Published: 25 Oct 2026