Here are our reviews of comedy Gigs
© BBC/Passion Docs/Richard Davis Review of the Arena documentary
25/12/2023 … That we know how Caroline Aherne’s story ends so tragically early lends a poignancy to this touching documentary about her career and her troubles.
© BBC/Monumental Review of the last ever episode
25/12/2023 … What an utterly charming way to end an utterly charming comedy.
© BBC/Avalon Review of the Christmas special of Lee Mack's sitcom
24/12/2023 … A hundred episodes is quite some achievement for any UK sitcom.
© DJ Shin/CC BY-SA 3.0 21/12/2023 … There’s much talk about whether Artificial Intelligence will ever outperform humans in their jobs.
© Marc Brenner Review of the cod-Shakespearean Covid satire at Soho Theatre
12/12/2023 … Boris Johnson would like to see himself as a hero of Greek myth, though he sits more squarely in tragedy, with the qualities that made him – frivolous…
© Alex Harvey-Brown Review of Alison Spittle's new play
08/12/2023 … Premiering at Oxford’s Old Fire Station Theatre, the second play from Irish comedian Alison Spittle revolves around the world of wild swimming.
Review of the festive favourite back in London
07/12/2023 … Potted Panto is a serious academic study of the evolution of pantomime from its roots in the commedia dell’arte tradition to the modern day.
Review of the 'mumcom' stand-up show now on tour
05/12/2023 … ‘Congratulations,’ says the doorman, shaking me by the hand as I enter the 400-seat Leicester Square Theatre.
© Steve Ullathorne 04/12/2023 … It was a fairly open field that contested the 14th Leicester Square Theatre New Comedian Of The Year competition.
Review of the final at the Comedy Store
30/11/2023 … Its £10,001 prize has previously wooed some of the circuit's biggest hitters, such as Ian Stone, Steve Gribbin, Mike Gunn and Jeff Innocent.
Review of two up-and-coming comedians
29/11/2023 … This double bill of up-and-coming comics looking for agents to elevate their careers marks both Farah Sharp and Elaine Fellows out as safe pairs of comedy hands,…
© BBC/Various Artists Limited Review of Kat Sadler's new BBC Three comedy
22/11/2023 … Such Brave Girls falls squarely into the contemporary fashion for TV comedies that draw on unhappiness and trauma, with no shortage of either.
Review of the enduring comedy-cabaret stars' latest show
15/11/2023 … After 40 years, fans know what to expect from a Fascinating Aida gig by now: impeccably intricate songwriting, slick, elegant performance and lyrics that undermine…
Review of the pun-loving comedian's latest tour
10/11/2023 … In the age of superstar comedians emerging from nowhere – or rather TikTok – Mark Simmons has been doing things the old fashioned way: relentlessly gigging…
© Johan Persson Review of the new comedy play about the Queen Mother's confidant hitting the West End
08/11/2023 … It’s easy to see why playwright Marcelo Dos Santos was drawn to the uniquely fascinating relationship between the Queen Mother and Billy Tallon, the loyal…
07/11/2023 … A recurring tongue-in-cheek complaint that's heard increasingly at new act competitions is that comedy is now full to bursting, with established acts wishing…
Review of the climax of the new act competition
07/11/2023 … Often new act competitions have a clear winner – a stand-out star-in-the-making, clearly head-and-shoulders above their contemporaries, however talented.
Review of the Liverpool club's talent showcase
06/11/2023 … Hot Water’s breakthrough act of the year competition is one of the comedy circuit’s less structured competitions.
Review of the comic's reflective new stand-up show
03/11/2023 … It really is the way you tell them.
Review of the comedian and storyteller's Halloween yarn
03/11/2023 … In his blurb for Maybe A Ghost Story, DanieI Kitson insists: ‘I don’t believe in ghosts and I’ve never been comfortable with (or really, any good…
© Tom Howard Review of Robert Bathurst in an immersive version of the play in Soho's Coach And Horses
31/10/2023 … It’s a one-man show, but it has two stars.
Review of the comedian's cancer documentary
30/10/2023 … My, this film about Rhod Gilbert’s cancer treatment puts its audience through the emotional wringer.
Review of the comedian's new GB News show
29/10/2023 … Since he’s spent most of the recent years bemoaning woke culture, John Cleese finds a natural home at GB News, even if you might hope he has some reservations…
Review of the comic's first stand-up tour in five years
27/10/2023 … It’s been a long time since Michael McIntyre perfected his lucrative brand of exaggerated observational comedy.
Review of the Edinburgh Comedy Award winning show
17/10/2023 … It’s clear why Ahir Shah won the Edinburgh Comedy Award with this remarkable piece of storytelling, setting the affecting tale of his immigrant grandparents’…
16/10/2023 … Quite a popular school of thought these days is how ‘you can’t say anything any more’.
Review of four TikTokers turning their hand to stand-up
16/10/2023 … The idea of a night full ofTikTok comedians is not the sort of thing to fill a stand-up purist’s heart with glee.
04/10/2023 … Is Bennett Arron a winner or a loser? That’s the simple premise of this affable Welsh comic’s show.
Review of the circuit veteran's new tour
04/10/2023 … This is not a good title for Alistair Barrie’s 11th solo show.
© Steve Ullathorne Gig review from the Bloomsbury Theatre, London
29/09/2023 … If the closing speeches at this year’s Funny Women awards were even longer and more self-congratulatory than usual, perhaps that can be forgiven.
Review of the comic's current tour
27/09/2023 … James Acaster’s been a comedian for 15 years and at the top of his game for a good two-thirds of that.
Review of Peter Serafinowicz's hapless businessman now on stage
25/09/2023 … ‘Every failure is a lesson learned,’ is Brian Butterfield’s watchword.
© Apple Review of Apple's new insomniac romcom
23/09/2023 … After the success of Trying and Ted Lasso, Apple TV+’s new British comedy Still Up feels like an updated version of Sleepless In Seattle, but written during…
© Marc Brenner Review of the national treasure's tour as it hits the London Palladium
22/09/2023 … Dawn French pitches her latest theatrical stand-up show as an antidote to the curated perfection of social media.
© Pamela Raith Photography Review of Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer’s stage comedy starring Rufus Hound and Samuel West
20/09/2023 … It’s not mentioned in the promotional material, but Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer’s stage comedy It’s Headed Straight Towards Us was first…
© BBC/Various Artists Limited Review of Mawaan Rizwan's new BBC Three comedy
18/09/2023 … Joyfully bucking the trend for realistic comedy-dramas, Mawaan Rizwan has successfully harnessed his on-stage silliness into a delightfully bonkers sitcom.
© Emilio Madrid 16/09/2023 … As a comic storyteller, Mike Birbiglia is a finely tuned, perfectly engineered Rolls-Royce.
Review of the stand-up showcase for OnlyFans video-on-demand platform
13/09/2023 … Everybody knows it’s a home for adult content, but OnlyFans is determined to use comedy to prove it can offer more.
Review of the climax to the inaugural competition
11/09/2023 … Virtually every open-spot comedy promoter runs a new act competition, and newcomers Comedy Tonight – who run a weekly gig in Hammersmith, West London,…
American alt.comedy star comes to London
06/09/2023 … As we file in to the Soho Theatre, the arty monochrome film playing on screen sets Kate Berlant alongside such heavyweight stagecraft luminaries as Sanford Meisner and…
© David Andrako Review of Frankenstein-based cabaret show at Soho Theatre
06/09/2023 … New York cabaret powerhouse Salty Brine says he likes to use ‘Frankenstein’ as a verb, meaning to stitch together disparate ideas to make an all-new…
© Marc Brenner / RSC Review of the new RSC production, with additional material by Stewart Lee
31/08/2023 … If you’re seeking a cynical definition of stand-up, ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’ isn’t a bad…
Review of new movie starring David Earl and Natalie Palamides
30/08/2023 … The title makes it sound like it could be a slasher horror flick, especially given that clowns don’t exactly have the cuddliest reputation on film.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
29/08/2023 … There are few better ways to end a Fringe – or even a night at the Fringe - than with the unhinged mayhem of Stamptown.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
29/08/2023 … In the voiceover announcing himself to the stage, Andy Parsons hails his modest achievements, such as winning Wimborne Minster’s beautiful baby award and…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
29/08/2023 … Think of a countercultural tribe, and chances are Andrew O’Neill belongs to it as an non-binary vegan anarchist metalhead who practises ritualistic magick.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
29/08/2023 … Emmanuel Sonubi has not messed with the winning formula that earned him a best newcomer nod last year – and sure enough, he was elevated to the Edinburgh Comedy…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
29/08/2023 … ‘If you’re not perfect but are working on yourself, make some noise!’ As an icebreaker it’s neither so clean, nor so hack, as getting people…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … Laser Webber had one of the best show titles at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, inspired by Samuel Bundy, one of the first recorded trans men in UK history.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … For the uninitiated, the title of Richard Stott’s fourth Edinburgh show comes from a sore loser on Channel 4’s Come Dine With Me, lashing out at the…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … It’s been five years since Anna Leong Brophy and Emily Lloyd-Saini were last at the Fringe, and absolutely nothing has changed… Well, Emily became…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … Louise Young has a past that could euphemistically be described as ‘colourful’ – though her wayward youth could also be cast as self-medicating…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … An hour-long version of Ignacio Lopez's upcoming 90-minute touring show, Nine Ig Fails is written like it's a landmark chapter in his career.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … Heidi Regan promises her audiences 'a very silly show – you’re not going to learn anything and probably not going to feel anything’.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … Blurring the boundaries between a gig and a gathering, it almost goes without saying that Patrick Monahan's final show of the Fringe is a sentimental, overrunning…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … Louise Atkinson bills herself as a ‘gobby Northern comedian’ more used to battling hen dos late at night than delighting an afternoon festival crowd.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … You’ll leave Fiona Ridgewell’s show feeling you’ve had a life update from a quirky but easy-going friend.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … Kelly McCaughan had a devout Catholic education, and she turned out just fine.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … Excuse us for adding to Mark Watson’s digital footprint.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … Ciarán Bartlett's a strong late-night booking, a roistering showman with more strings to his act than his impressive guitar-playing.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … The story of Geraldine Hickey’s recent wedding is joyful but also so soft as to be forgettable, saved only by an unaffected low-key delivery that’s quietly…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
28/08/2023 … Back in the old days, the Umbilical Brothers recall, sketch performers had to ask audiences to use their imagination to conjure up the scenes they were depicting.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
27/08/2023 … With mild pyrotechnics, elemental effects and physical threat to one of the seating banks, Dave Hill makes quite the return to the Fringe after 13 years away.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
27/08/2023 … Eleanor Conway maintains that she doesn't know a lot about politics, but the personal is resolutely political in her latest sexually frank, feminist show.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
27/08/2023 … George Zacharopoulos isn't cast in the heroic mould of his Greek homeland's ancient classicism, at least not in the conventional sense.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
27/08/2023 … Middle-class comics can do a full hour about being a bit sad (to grossly oversimplfiy), while working-class comics like William Thompson can have a drug-dealer dad…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
27/08/2023 … Like Hitchcock's famous bomb under the table, Jay Lafferty's pole dancing pole stands to the side of her, untouched for the greater part of her show, less…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
27/08/2023 … Imposter in an hour of gentle, friendly storytelling about a far-from gentle and friendly housemate Bilal Zafar found himself landed with.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
27/08/2023 … Alex Franklin declares that they want us to laugh more than we’ve ever laughed before, and for someone to laugh so much that they die.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
27/08/2023 … Table For One revolves around Sid Singh’s two jobs, both of which he’s passionate about: human rights lawyer and comedian.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
27/08/2023 … Will BF parodies Western films and documentaries in the most wonderful and weird way.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
26/08/2023 … ‘I’m a whimsy comedian, what am I doing at 11.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
26/08/2023 … Weird but confident is Tom Lawrinson's stated vibe.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
26/08/2023 … Chelsea Hart’s unique blend of comedy and politics is inspiring, exploring the realities women face everyday in Iran, while finding light in the darkness.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
26/08/2023 … So You Think You’re Funny? picked ten finalists rather than its usual nine this year, and it’s hard to see who you’d have dropped if you had to,…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
26/08/2023 … Sarah Cameron-West’s comedic storytelling explores a rollercoaster of emotions, often landing on female rage, while performing an amusing tale about break-ups…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
26/08/2023 … You don’t have to be a Dungeons & Dragons fan to enjoy this comedy improv show that takes the audience through an imaginary world, rolling the dice for…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
26/08/2023 … Following up her 2022 debut hour about being life and soul of the party, here Sikisa Bostwick-Barnes reveals some of the vulnerability behind that confident, booty-shaking…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
26/08/2023 … André De Freitas has sacrificed a lot for comedy.
© Karla Gowlett Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
26/08/2023 … Sasha Ellen is surely bang on the money when she identifies the cognitive dissonance at the heart of modern hook-ups.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
25/08/2023 … Hosted by Vix Leyton, The Comedy Arcade is a competition of scandalous stories, with new comics each night vying for the win.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
25/08/2023 … It’s a running joke how much we hear from supposedly cancelled comedians, and now in a converted church hall away from the main Fringe hubs, Irish comic Al…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
25/08/2023 … If anyone can explain why Scottish Bard Rabbie Burns would have got a kick out of Top Man’s changing rooms, it’s Christopher Macarthur-Boyd, who also…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
25/08/2023 … Having hit her early 40s, Stella Graham worries that she's turning into her mother, the 'dragon' of her show title, an intimidating, indomitable woman…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
25/08/2023 … What is it to devote your life to a difficult, physically gruelling and futile pursuit for which there is apparently no public demand? Trust a clown to be…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
25/08/2023 … Another comedian, another show about gender and identity.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
25/08/2023 … Amy Webber tackles that age-old question - how to make your CV stand out and get a job.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
25/08/2023 … It’s often hard to know how or if impressive social media numbers translate into real world popularity.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
25/08/2023 … What would you do if, on one of the final outings of your late-night Fringe show, there was only one person in the audience – and she was the first reviewer…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
24/08/2023 … What a show of two halves Sachin Kumarendran’s Fringe debut is.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
24/08/2023 … It must be terribly strange having spent nine years – from the age of 17 – playing a distinctive character on a well-known American sitcom.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
24/08/2023 … A good whodunnit is tightly plotted and gratifies curiosity about the killer and their motive at the end.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
24/08/2023 … ‘I know this is a challenging piece,’ says Claire Woolner after one of her typically intense and bizarre sketches.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
24/08/2023 … Police Cops is a musical comedy for the ages, a silly yet political story told through energising dances, exaggerated stereotypes, and powerful songs.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
24/08/2023 … A sleazy, toxic edgelord with ‘ironically’ sexist, racist and homophobic material, Martin Urbano revels in being an unapologetic comedian… who…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
24/08/2023 … What would you do if your peers were hoping to take advantage of civil unrest by planning a spot of looting, as if anticipating a big sale? It’s something…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
24/08/2023 … Every year, it seems that hundreds of comedians come to Edinburgh with one noble purpose.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
23/08/2023 … Bronwyn Sweeney’s Edinburgh debut gets off to a cracking start.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
23/08/2023 … Making a decent fist of arguing for the pre-eminence of storytelling, Lynn Ferguson offers up a solidly amusing hour of well-structured anecdotes with ambitions…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
23/08/2023 … By their very nature, coming-out stories tend to focus on the person declaring their sexuality rather than who is receiving the news.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
23/08/2023 … Good God, Helen Bauer is a force of nature.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
23/08/2023 … Stuart Laws is experimenting with being vulnerable in a way he’s not done before.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
23/08/2023 … There’s a lot to unpack in Sian Davies’s serpentine second show, covering the big issues of identity and the separation of art from the artist as…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
23/08/2023 … A woman sucks soy sauce off a man’s naked stomach to win a bottle of beer, as a rowdy crowd holler encouragement.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
23/08/2023 … Comedians tend to have little shame when it comes to talking about themselves on stage – but one thing few British stand-ups will admit is being nakedly ambitious.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
22/08/2023 … Elliot Steel uses dark comedy as his selling point, but it is his insightfulness and quick wit that makes his show shine.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
22/08/2023 … Taiwan leads the world in semiconductors, able to cope with trillions of processes a second.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
22/08/2023 … The emergence of viral online stars as Fringe performers in recent years has been a decidedly mixed blessing.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
22/08/2023 … I’d wager this is the first autobiographical comedy shows to include the line, said in a gently reassuring Northern English lilt: ‘…And so I had…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
22/08/2023 … ‘This is a punk rock comedy show: it’s rude and loud,’ says former Scottish Comedian of the Year Rosco McClelland, dressed in white T-shirt and…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
22/08/2023 … Stuart Goldsmith knows nobody wants to hear about the impending environmental catastrophe – and as an incurable people-pleaser, he doesn’t really want…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
22/08/2023 … With Spank! no more and Late n Live getting earlier and tamer, the weirdos have reclaimed super-late nights at the Fringe.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
22/08/2023 … This Fringe is the first time Aaron Simmonds has performed his stand-up show standing up.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
22/08/2023 … Two months on, and Viggo Venn still can’t quite believe he won Britain’s Got Talent with his nonsense.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
22/08/2023 … At a time when every age group seems to be nursing a beef with those who are younger, or older, who ruined everything for them or who don’t know how damned…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
22/08/2023 … A timely prophetic wake-up call about the existential dangers of artificial intelligence – all delivered by a woman in fishnets and kinky PVC lingerie –…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
21/08/2023 … Alexandra Haddow is a personable comedian of innate poise, unfussily drawing audiences into her confidence with a relaxed, engaging demeanour which belies a precision…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
21/08/2023 … David Quirk’s insistence that his story is truthful, already anticipating our disbelief, promises an intriguing hour, while a dramatic lip-sync performance…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
21/08/2023 … Hole is an impressive debut from a compelling performer who has found a quirky and entertaining way of telling her story, raising awareness - that dread phrase -…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
21/08/2023 … For a show ironically named Hostile, Matt Hutchinson’s Fringe debut strikes a fine balance between light humour and political truths.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
21/08/2023 … Philipp Kostelecky commanded a hot, full room at the Stand this afternoon.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
21/08/2023 … Charlotte Fox is the serpent devouring its own tail in the Ouroborus, representing the eternal cycle of destruction and rebirth.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
21/08/2023 … When a middle-aged white male comic starts talking passionately about what you can and can’t say on stage these days, it rarely turns out well.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
20/08/2023 … The joke of Meghan Stalter’s act is that she demands our adoration and acclaim without displaying any discernible talent to have earned it.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
20/08/2023 … Max and Ivan have always put some of their own lives into their Fringe shows, and never more successfully than in 2019’s powerhouse show, Commitment.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
20/08/2023 … When he appeared on Taskmaster this year, Ivo Graham performed so poorly that fellow contestant Jenny Eclair asked him: ‘Can you get money back from Eton?’ Perhaps…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
20/08/2023 … Very little at the Fringe is what it seems, but this lecture on the origins of euphemisms for making love is precisely what it says in the title.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
20/08/2023 … It’s power hour indeed as Jo Griffin possesses the stage like a dervish, almost permanently on the verge of a dance break or a high kick so vigorous she fears…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
20/08/2023 … What would you bring to the revolution? Don Biswas will bring raw honesty, political comedy, and well-timed one-liners.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
20/08/2023 … New Zealanders Laser Kiwi are a fun mash-up of genres, describing themselves as a surreal sketch comedy circus troupe.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
19/08/2023 … Chapeau to Kathy Maniura for choosing Wet Leg as her walk-in music.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
19/08/2023 … Peter Flanagan’s show about putting his life back together after the pandemic is a worthy lesson in relaxed storytelling.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
19/08/2023 … As well as being a comedian, Kiran Deol is a Harvard-educated documentary-maker who was nominated for an Oscar for a film she made about the women fighting in the…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
19/08/2023 … Rebekka Johnson and Anne Gregory joke that their corporate company retreat is going to be ‘forced fun’, and that ends up being a surprisingly accurate…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
19/08/2023 … Spencer Jones did not have a good lockdown.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
19/08/2023 … Patrick Susmilch is undoubtedly tapping into something poignant when evoking the modern phenomenon of our digital devices retaining correspondence from loved ones…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
19/08/2023 … This feels like a showreel for LA-based Greta Titelman’s triple-threat talents.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
19/08/2023 … A rising star on the more alternative end of the spectrum, Benjamin Alborough brings his anarchic debut to the Fringe, a Shooting Stars-style surrealist gameshow.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
19/08/2023 … When you don’t have much else, you can always have hope.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
18/08/2023 … Both clowning and improv have their vocal detractors, and not entirely without cause.
© Lee Jameson Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
18/08/2023 … Arguably, nothing justifies breaking up with a suffocating partner quite like them then writing a one-person, musical Fringe show about it.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
18/08/2023 … Budge up Nina Conti, and make room for a new star ventriloquist – though Lachlan Werner demonstrates his talents in a very different way in this impressive,…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
18/08/2023 … Tilahun Hailu has had an extraordinary life.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
18/08/2023 … By rights, there ought to be a social media platform on which Mat Ewins is huge.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
18/08/2023 … Gareth Mutch insists at the start of this good-natured hour that we will leave with our thoughts unprovoked.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
18/08/2023 … The blurb for Alastair Clark’s Fringe show talks of nihilism and likens him to Jean-Paul Sartre – which is all a bit misleading and pretentious for an…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
17/08/2023 … For anyone stressed by the sensory overload of Edinburgh at festival time, William Stone aims to have the most relaxing show on the Fringe.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
17/08/2023 … Ania Magliano may well have been a little frustrated to miss out on an award nomination last year, after months of steadily-building hype, and a debut show that…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
17/08/2023 … It’s not just at the cinema where you can be entertained by both plastic dolls and the Manhattan Project.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
17/08/2023 … With a truly singular mind and talent, there’s never been another performer quite like Johnny White Really-Really.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
17/08/2023 … The Creepy Boys introduce themselves by way of a jaunty old-school vaudevillian number:’ Hooray for the Creepy Boys! Make way for the Creepy Boys!’ Though…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
17/08/2023 … Anyone who thinks it’s easier to make children laugh than adults has never sat with a child through a full show, willing them to be grateful for the experience.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
17/08/2023 … Waggish prankster Sam Campbell returned to the Fringe 12 months after scooping the Edinburgh Comedy Award in the most Sam Campbelly way possible – a single…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
16/08/2023 … Just days before the Fringe kicked off, Eric Rushton won the first Sean Lock Comedy Award given out by Channel 4, making comparisons with the late star hard to avoid,…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
16/08/2023 … After a week at the Fringe seeing eight shows a day, sometimes a little gimmick can be just the ticket, and American comedian Dominique Salerno’s one-woman…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
16/08/2023 … Ignore the second word in the title of Veteran Comedian.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
16/08/2023 … Following last year’s newcomer nomination for Waste of Space, Josh Jones is back with a sophomore show that continues to develop and expand upon the high levels…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
16/08/2023 … It’s apt, but the amiable Matt Hobs’ show about space travel hasn’t got much weight.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
16/08/2023 … There’s so much to adore about Shelf, the easy-going double act comprising Rachel WD and Ruby Clyde, who’ve been friends since they were kids.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
16/08/2023 … What a phenomenal tour-de-force comedy performance this is.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
16/08/2023 … Pierre Novellie recognises he’s too cerebral and sardonic a comedian to be opening with the enthusiastic holler: ‘It’s Saturday night! Who’s…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
16/08/2023 … By day, Matt Goldich is a writer for Late Night with Seth Meyers, the latest in a long series of TV gigs.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
15/08/2023 … ImPerfect is an honest and sweet monologue that’s profoundly significant to Myq Kaplan as he pays heartfelt tribute to his partner and the relationship he…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
15/08/2023 … A resolutely low-key presence on the Fringe scene, David McIver feels like a quintessential comedian’s comedian.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
15/08/2023 … ‘Don’t trust a comedian who’s got their shit together,’ Garrett Millerick advises.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
15/08/2023 … Milo Edwards’ Fringe show from last year, Voicemail, sounds like a raw affair for the performer if not for the audience.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
15/08/2023 … The latest of Matt Price’s affecting stories about extreme situations concerns the time a notorious London gangster threatened to have him killed.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
15/08/2023 … Laura Ramoso is a stunningly talented comic performer with squillions of adoring followers on social media, where she’s known for sharp character sketches…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
15/08/2023 … She’s a maths buff, but data-scientist stand-up Ginny Horgan’s got her sums wrong in extrapolating what seems like a perfectly serviceable comedy…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
15/08/2023 … At last, a confident performer delivering an hour jam-packed with laughs and barely a pause to breathe.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
15/08/2023 … Jaz Mattu says his debut is ‘about me getting into stand-up and working out who I am’, which is not the most alluring premise, not least because you…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
15/08/2023 … Grant Lancaster has fallen into a classic trap for actors in the construction of this one-man show.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
14/08/2023 … Chris Curran and Noah Matthews check their privilege at the start of their debut show as Bishops, raising – and attempting to quickly dispel –…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
14/08/2023 … This is one of those clown shows where an intimidating performer pleads and cajoles reluctant audience members to join them on stage.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
14/08/2023 … Some of the most fascinating comics have spent their lives dealing with the kind of shit most of us will never truly appreciate.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
14/08/2023 … This is a fun, artistic experiment from the ever-creative Elf Lyons and her collaborator Duffy – as well as bringing a touch of much-needed extra accessibility…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
14/08/2023 … With the deliberately ambiguous I Can Make Me Rich – whose benefit is this for, us or his? - Stanley Brooks is a broad yet adaptable spoof of the financial…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
14/08/2023 … Stand-ups are always lauding comedy as a way to confront dark issues, with large sections of this festival based on comedians processing their trauma through laughs…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
14/08/2023 … Daniel Foxx is part of a sea change at this year’s festival, a clutch of comics making their debuts having built their audiences via social media rather than…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
14/08/2023 … Phil Ellis’s Excellent Comedy Show has got it all: music, singing, dancing, improvised rap, puns, emotional heft, TikTok videos… Is he any…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
14/08/2023 … What a glorious lunchtime hoot this show is, with never a dip nor laboured moment in an hour that rackets along.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
14/08/2023 … This feels like the year that American comedy has fully embraced the British-style solo show, with themes, messages and storytelling as important as the jokes –…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
13/08/2023 … Midway through this performance, Ian Smith builds up to a rare moment of (limited) vulnerability when he’s heckled by the wheezing and clanking of the ancient…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
13/08/2023 … For their charming debut hour Sportsperson, Cerys Bradley was apparently criticised in some circles for not being mean enough to the audience.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
13/08/2023 … Straight-up stand-up done like it should be, John Hastings’ latest hour comes with no more significant message or theme beyond: ‘Here are the times I…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
13/08/2023 … Easily among the most exciting Fringe debutants of this year, John Tothill arrives with a beautifully sculpted, fully-formed stage persona in which every unusual…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
13/08/2023 … Gentle musical comedian Matty Hutson has very much not heeded the advice of his ironic title.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
13/08/2023 … Painstakingly crafted and brilliantly performed, Rosalie Minnitt's character comedy debut is so much more than it first appears, with the laughs escalating…
13/08/2023 … Given that adjectives such as degenerate, obscene, and blasphemous attached themselves to Lucy McCormick’s bold breakthrough show Triple Threat in 2016, fans…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
13/08/2023 … Scottish-Italian clown Charlie Vero-Martin welcomes her audience to a charming scene: flowers, a lovely gingham dress with matching picnic blanket, and a box of…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
12/08/2023 … Software engineers Lloyd Henning and Peter Sutton, aka, Foxdog Studios have returned to the Fringe with an hour that may exceed even the great Mat…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
12/08/2023 … This show is so much better than its poster and blurb that someone should be taken out and spanked.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
12/08/2023 … Making an entrance in darkness to bone-rattling horrorcore, Amy Matthews admits ’It’s been an intense year.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
12/08/2023 … Cara Connor’s show - like so many others – is all about identity.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
12/08/2023 … Part of a recent vanguard of razor-sharp Gen Z doomers in stand-up, Paddy Young is among his clique’s most livewire and exciting performers, generating a sleazy,…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
12/08/2023 … Larry Owens won awards for his starring role in the breakout off-Broadway hit A Strange Loop, about a frustrated large, black, queer man struggling to find space…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
12/08/2023 … It’s hard to feel ill-at-ease spending time with Vix Leyton, even in this sparsely populated anonymous hotel basement.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
11/08/2023 … The elevator pitch for Dave Bibby’s Baby Dinosaur is pretty simple.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
11/08/2023 … Matt Harvey is understandably pleased to be using Australia Council for the Arts money to bring this show to the UK – a show which exists in large part to…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
11/08/2023 … Tatty Macleod made a name for herself online with videos contrasting typical French and English behaviours, and her Fringe debut does not change a winning formula.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
11/08/2023 … Have you ever seen a comedy show where something was left unexplained? Where the performer didn’t make their thematic subtext, no matter how clever, explicit…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
11/08/2023 … So Sophie Zucker got off with her second cousin at her grandfather’s shiva, or wake.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
11/08/2023 … Liz Guterbock glows with Californian positivity in this stifling Edinburgh cellar, showering the audience with warmth and welcome as she came on.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
11/08/2023 … There are some great lines in Robin Ince’s Melons.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
11/08/2023 … Determining at the outset that maybe a fifth of his audience are in the teaching profession, like he was, Kevin Precious nevertheless pitches his hour as if he’s…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
10/08/2023 … Simon Evans is the best comedian regularly appearing on GB News – a dubious honour perhaps akin to being named Britain’s best-dressed paedophile.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
10/08/2023 … As his Parkinson’s takes a tighter hold, Paul Sinha thinks 2023 might be his last full-on run at his beloved Edinburgh Fringe.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
10/08/2023 … There are no fancy adornments to JJ Whitehead’s stand-up.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
10/08/2023 … Chloe Petts came out swinging.
© Andre Scheidt Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
10/08/2023 … Every comedian needs something to make them stand out, and in Natalie Perlin’s case, God has taken her prayers very literally.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
10/08/2023 … Relative comedy newcomer Adam Flood fits a specific model of Gen Z male stand-up that feels like it was pioneered by Ed Night: quick, acidic jokes, pastel streetwear,…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
10/08/2023 … Stand-up director Paul Byrne had such influence and respect in comedy that many comics have built routines commemorating him after his death at 44 in February last…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
10/08/2023 … Outrageously talented Luke Kempner has gone genre-mining to offer us a British police drama populated with some favourite characters from Line of Duty , Luther and…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
10/08/2023 … As a French comedian, Celya AB admits she has built a decent career on mocking the Brits.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
09/08/2023 … If you plan to see Janine Harouni this Fringe, sooner might be better than later, given she’s eight months pregnant and her due date is worryingly close to…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
09/08/2023 … Thirty years old, still renting, and having already packed away 10 years of Fringe shows, Alexander Bennett’s age is starting to reflect his stage presence:…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
09/08/2023 … Simon Brodkin means different things to different people.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
09/08/2023 … You can’t help feeling a bit sorry for Frank Lavender.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
09/08/2023 … Having ‘travelled through the astral plane’ to arrive at the packed-out Stand, Marjolein Robertson retains a few traces of another world – which…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
09/08/2023 … Rarely since Johnny Vegas was at his bitter, raging peak has a stand-up seemed as troublingly unhinged as Dan Tiernan.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
09/08/2023 … In her Edinburgh debut, 24-year-old Annabel Marlow appears to be setting out her stall to be a spokeswoman for Gen Z, or at least a certain part of it.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
09/08/2023 … He’s a grumpy beta male who thinks he ought to be an alpha, a beleaguered but defiant character, throwing sometimes inappropriate, often misanthropic comments…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
09/08/2023 … Crizards, who enjoy reminding us that they’re ‘the lowest-energy double act in the UK’, are honing a tasty trade in genre spoofs.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
09/08/2023 … The crisis in masculinity is a big problem that needs a big solution.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
08/08/2023 … It requires quite some storytelling chops to take the events of one drunken night and spin them out into a full hour, with the audience still hanging on every twist…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
08/08/2023 … During Drew Michael’s heavy-going show, the old line comes to mind: ‘I have suffered for my art.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
08/08/2023 … Of the hundreds of stories this festival, Moses Storm has one of the most intriguing.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
08/08/2023 … Being a musician was the only thing Josh Weller ever wanted to do but, in his words, he failed.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
08/08/2023 … At school in the US, Chloe Radcliffe was a national speech and debate champion - skills which persist to this day.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
08/08/2023 … Lulu Popplewell has made an entertaining and engaging show which should have a life way beyond the Fringe.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
08/08/2023 … If Sarah Millican’s just not bawdy enough for you, try Lindsey Santoro, who has taken the baton of dirty-talking stand-up and run with it.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
07/08/2023 … Ever thought some climate change protesters may be more about virtue signalling and burnishing their ego than solving humanity’s biggest crisis? Well, self-appointed…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
07/08/2023 … Sorry to bring bad news to anyone who has tickets for Frank Skinner’s sold-out Fringe run, but I have to report that, at 66 and a full 32 years after scooping…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
07/08/2023 … Little wonder that mental health is such a popular subject for Fringe comedy, given the intensely personal nature of stand-up.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
07/08/2023 … There is one particular moment of surprise stupidity in Lorna Rose Treen’s debut hour guaranteed to have you laughing for its sheer ‘WTF just happened?’…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
07/08/2023 … After taking his sweet time to make a slightly stiff entrance in a tight tuxedo, Ikechukwu Ufomadu explains, in the style of a JFK speech, what words he’ll…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
07/08/2023 … Taking to the stage in his tartan jacket, Kieran Hodgson opens the show with a bold: ‘Yes, I’m Scottish’ in an accent that’s decidedly…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
06/08/2023 … It’s taken him ten shows, based around such specific themes as hair, the sky and the colour yellow, but Rob Auton has ended up where most comedians start –…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
06/08/2023 … Don’t be fooled by the title.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
06/08/2023 … Krystal Evans’s Fringe debut is a show of two halves.
© Rebecca Need-Menear Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
06/08/2023 … A crucial and delicate moment in Liam Withnail’s 2022 show, True Defective, in which he opened up about addiction, was interrupted by the sound of an incongruously…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
06/08/2023 … There’s an unresolvable hypocrisy at the heart of Mary O’Connell’s messy but intriguing debut in that she thinks capitalism is absurd and corrosive…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
06/08/2023 … Canadian comic J Murphy describes A Tinderella Story: Swipe, Wince, Repeat as a ‘comedic TED talk’, and truth be told, it felt more like a talk than…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
06/08/2023 … Holly Kellingray and Brooke Jones met while studying acting at Arts University Bournemouth - and several years on, a drama school vibe still permeates their characters.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
05/08/2023 … Walking on to a Sugababes tune, wearing a Sugababes T-shirt, standing in front of a projected image of the Sugababes, Phil Green presents a show that doesn’t…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
05/08/2023 … Fiona Allen comes to the Fringe with quite some comedy pedigree.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
05/08/2023 … With little of the naturalism of stand-up and oftentimes no urgency to find jokes, Angela Beevers’ one-woman show might sit better in the theatre section of…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
05/08/2023 … Magic Mike Live would envy an audience as excitedly enthusiastic as John Travulva attracts.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
05/08/2023 … Lucinda Spragg is one of the more recent additions to the pantheon of caricatures parodying right-wing rabble-rousers – laughable, ridiculous grotesques like…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
05/08/2023 … Chris Grace is a fat, gay, 50-year-old Chinese comedian, so the very suggestion that he could play the stunning blonde Danish-American superstar Scarlett Johannson…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
04/08/2023 … The premise of Gabby Killick’s show is that her agent keeps offering advice about why she shouldn’t be performing one routine or another.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
04/08/2023 … Laudably, Ian Stone says his show might be about bringing people together, given there’s more that unites us than divides us.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
04/08/2023 … Olga Koch seems to get more confident, more raunchy and more reckless with every passing year.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
04/08/2023 … Considering it features specialist porn and a live sex act, in which a member of the audience is recruited into an exchange of money for a remote client’s…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
04/08/2023 … In his Fringe debut, Darran Griffiths shares an intimate story that touches on several serious subjects with charm and good humour.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
04/08/2023 … Viral TikTok comedian Tim Murray is in Edinburgh to celebrate his path to being a queer adult, from wishing to sit at the girls' table as a child, to now finding…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
04/08/2023 … Urooj Ashfaq is one of a raft of Indian comedians London’s Soho Theatre has brought over to the Fringe, helping raise the international profile of acts on…
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
03/08/2023 … It’s early in the Fringe, and parts of Micky Overman’s show remain rough around the edges.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
03/08/2023 … In her brutally frank Edinburgh debut, Avital Ash confesses she’s dogged by abject feelings of hating herself.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
03/08/2023 … It would be easy to dismiss MC Hammersmith as a cartoonish, one-joke wordsmith.
Edinburgh Fringe comedy review
03/08/2023 … If Priya Hall was wondering what to make her debut Fringe show about, the universe has delivered.
© Hugo Glendinning Review of Al Murray, Mel Giedroyc and more in Restoration-style farce
01/08/2023 … Veteran comedy writer Simon Nye, creator of Men Behaving Badly, has followed the standard character arc for men of a certain age and has gotten really into history,…
© Boffola Pictures/Lookout Point Review of Sian Gibson's new BBC One comedy
29/07/2023 … The recent-ish past has long been a boon for mainstream sitcoms.
© BBC/Big Deal Films Review of Adjani Salmon's BBC Three comedy
25/07/2023 … The wheels of the British television industry turn very slowly.
© Stuart Hogben Review from the Suffolk festival
24/07/2023 … Latitude’s comedy arena is big - but some comedians are bigger.
Review from the Suffolk festival
24/07/2023 … She’s billing herself as the ‘Empress of Empathy’, but reinventing herself as a mindfulness guru has done nothing to soften Myra DuBois’s…
© Stuart Hogben Review from the Suffolk festival
23/07/2023 … ‘Give me a cheer if you’re a tofu-eating, Guardian-reading member of the wokerati!’ says Bridget Christie as she takes to the stage at the end…
Review from the Suffolk festival
23/07/2023 … Fern Brady knows she comes across as rude and cynical, which she ascribes to her autism (as discussed in her excellent and revealing memoir Strong Female…
© Stuart Hogben Review from the Suffolk festival
23/07/2023 … Michelle De Swarte has an easy confidence and an open, conversational style that charms.
© Stuart Hogben Review from the Suffolk festival
23/07/2023 … She attracted 1,500 complaints for stripping naked in a career-defining appearance on Friday Night Live – but at Latitude, Jordan Gray proved she can be entertaining…
© Stuart Hogben With Amy Gledhill providing the perfect lead-in
22/07/2023 … Ed Gamble got a lovely lead-in to his Friday night headline set at Latitude, courtesy of the bubbly, confessional set by Amy Gledhill - embracing silliness to the…
© Stuart Hogben Review from the Suffolk festival
22/07/2023 … Was becoming a political comedian ever part of Rachel Parris’s plan? The musical comedian found herself in the satirical realm thanks to Late Night Mash and…
© Stuart Hogben Review from the Suffolk festival
22/07/2023 … Offering an astute analysis of the British psyche, Russell Kane comments on our ‘all or nothing’ attitude: emotionally repressed then getting roaring…
Review of ten frontrunners from the next generation of comedy talent
14/07/2023 … The 19 years of the Chortle Student Comedy Award have - like the wider stand-up world – witnessed many trends.
Review of comic's show about an AI stand-up bot
12/07/2023 … American comedian and YouTuber Conner O’Malley has produced something of a Trojan Horse with Research and Development Comedy, a parody about a tech innovator…
Review of the musical comedy act's comeback show
06/07/2023 … Plenty of 1990s music stars are enjoying a late career resurgence on a wave of middle-aged nostalgia, so why not Supergirly? The Australian pop parody act - a stalwart…
© BBC Review of Anna Thomas' short film on iPlayer
05/07/2023 … It could be straight out of Jane Austen: a girl is infatuated by a boy from afar but dare not declare her love for fear of being ostracised by what society might…
© Helen Murray Review of Daniel Rigby in Tom Basden’s new adaptation
28/06/2023 … ‘Timely’ was the adjective most bandied about when it was announced that the new adaptation of Darius Fo’s satirical farce about police brutality,…
© ITV Review of ITVX's latest comedy, starring Jayde Adams
22/06/2023 … Last week Catherine Tate introduced us to one of the most unlikeable central characters in a comedy show in Queen Of Oz.
Review of the Edinburgh Comedy Award-winner's latest show
22/06/2023 … The thing about appearing on Taskmaster, John Kearns notes, is that ‘ticket sales go up… but the laughs, they go down.
© C4 Review of Bridget Christie's Channel 4 comedy
21/06/2023 … Much of the advance publicity for The Change has focussed on its menopausal aspect – no surprise given the title and how rare it is for that time of life to…
Review of the Glaswegian comic's new Radio 4 series
20/06/2023 … ‘I like to talk about the darkest parts of my life,’ says Janey Godley in her new Radio 4 series, The C Bomb.
© BBC/Lingo Review of Catherine Tate's new BBC comedy
16/06/2023 … In Queen Of Oz, Catherine Tate plays a spoiled party-girl Royal packed off to Australia to avoid being an embarrassment at home and to try to stave of republican…
Review of the comic's first stand-up tour in four years
16/06/2023 … Just before the interval of his first tour in four years, Jack Whitehall confesses to always seeking any distraction to avoid having a serious conversation.
© BBC Review of the episode unseen for 41 years
15/06/2023 … ‘It’s funnier than we thought it was going to be.
Review of five female acts showcased en route to the Edinburgh Fringe
13/06/2023 … London’s 99 Club has a track record of picking winners when it comes to its bursary for female and non-binary acts making their Edinburgh Fringe debuts.
Review of the spoof news reporter's new BBC radio comedy
09/06/2023 … Has the BBC muted Jonathan Pie? Not directly – but the first venture into radio for Tom Walker’s disillusioned political journalist is an uneasy…
© Quay Street Productions/ITVX Review of Youssef Kerkour and Katherine Parkinson's new ITVX comedy
08/06/2023 … By starting with an overdose attempt and a heart attack, Significant Other couldn’t signal its intentions to be an unconventional romcom any more clearly.
Review of Saturday Night Live's Trump impersonator in London
06/06/2023 … James Austin Johnson is a brilliant mimic, no doubt about that, having made a huge splash with his Donald Trump and Joe Biden impersonations when he joined Saturday…
02/06/2023 … It’s A Boy? is Ben Hodge’s account of his trans journey – a route that took him on so many diversions that he’s now pretty much completed…
01/06/2023 … A warm and engaging comic, Mustafa Algiyadi greets the audience as they enter the pub, let alone the intimate room he’s performing in.
01/06/2023 … An Israeli comic based in Berlin, Nir Gottleid describes himself as ‘one of the darkest comics’ in Europe, and sells his show about ageing by promising…
© ITV/Baby Cow Review of Alan Carr's new autobiographical ITVX sitcom
01/06/2023 … Changing Ends beams with warmth despite – or more likely because of – the endemic 1980s homophobia which forms its backdrop.
Review of the stage show spawned from Poppy Jay and Rubina Pabani's podcast
31/05/2023 … OK, so there’s some talk about masturbation and a version of Peggy Lee’s Fever that mentions ‘pussy juice’.
31/05/2023 … When the robots rise and make puny humans obsolete, the last bastion of this once-dominant race will be the improvisers.
30/05/2023 … It’s billed as three stand-ups offering comedy coming from the ‘very depths of their damned souls’, which provides plenty of latitude for he most…
30/05/2023 … All but the most hardcore monarchists should stay away from this adoring tribute to the late Queen, performed on a memorabilia-strewn set and concluding with a paean…
30/05/2023 … Is it mean to call Richard Pulsford a cut-price Tim Vine? Many of his jokes you can virtually hear in the more famous comedian’s voice (‘I said, "I…
29/05/2023 … It’s a bit scrappy, but Róisín McCallion’s debut hour establishes her as an exciting comedy prospect – a bright and appealing performer…
29/05/2023 … Abigail Rolling calls herself a shit lawyer since her clients have an unfortunate tendency to wind up in jail.
Review of the second night's gig in Cardiff
28/05/2023 … Seems like the TV comedy industry don’t much like watching live comedy.
Review of the opening night gig at the Glee, Cardiff
25/05/2023 … It’s surely not the most conducive of audiences, packed with industry types notoriously reticent when it comes to laughing out loud.
© Manuel Harlan Radio 4's Dickens spoof hits the West End
21/05/2023 … Cry ‘harrumble!’ for this joyously silly Dickensian romp transferring to the West End.
Brighton Fringe theatre review
18/05/2023 … The rancid culture that gets exposed depressingly often in the Met and other police forces deserves every satirical kicking that it gets.
17/05/2023 … Although still a relative newcomer, Amarpal Singh has a confidence and a playfulness that lights up a stage.
16/05/2023 … Wading through Marmalade is rather what it feels like to seek laughs in Thao Thanh Cao’s heavy-going hour.
Review of the musical comedy hitting the West End
15/05/2023 … It’s a story of audacious ingenuity credited with turning the tide of war – yet executed with elements of almost unbelievable farce.
10/05/2023 … Heleana and Sophia Blackwell are clearly a joyfully married couple, as much in love now as they were when they first started dating a decade ago.
09/05/2023 … She might fit the stereotype of a cougar with endless stories of sexual derring-do, but don’t ever call Amelia Jane Hunter predatory.
09/05/2023 … Taking a straw poll as to what brought people to this rather forlorn tent in the middle of a Brighton square, Grace Mulvey finds a trio of women drawn by her Instagram…
08/05/2023 … Almost all improvisers ask the audience to determine the subjects of their sketches.
© BBC Review of BBC One's new comedy-thriller
05/05/2023 … The BBC looks as if it has an instant hit on its hand with Black Ops.
© BBC Spoiler-free review of tonight's episode
04/05/2023 … Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton can be forgiven for a little bit of showing off in titling their latest Inside No 9 Paraskevidekatriaphobia – the fear…
© C4 Review of last night's Channel 4 show
01/05/2023 … In contrast to Frankie Boyle’s no-punches-pulled Farewell To The Monarchy, which followed on Channel 4 last night, The Windsors Coronation Special…
© Channel 4 Review of last night's Channel 4 programme
01/05/2023 … Frankie Boyle’s Farewell To The Monarchy is a welcome – and bitterly tart – antidote to the media’s wall-to-wall forelock-tugging Coronation…
© BBC/James Stack Review of Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's latest
27/04/2023 … In an interview to promote the return of Inside No 9, Reece Shearsmith teased that the new series was sometimes ‘quite gory… something that we haven’t…
New film about Downstair's At The King's Head
24/04/2023 … Whenever the history of the UK’s live comedy is written, the Comedy Store rightly takes centre stage as the venue which first opened its doors to alternative…
All 57 reviews from this year's event
21/04/2023 … All our reviews from the 2023 Melbourne International Comedy Festival: Gillian Cosgriff: Actually, Good Reuben Kaye: The Kaye Hole Tom Ballard:…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
21/04/2023 … Freedom is at the heart of He Huang’s debut stand-up hour, although her appealingly straightforward conversational approach never labours any such messages.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
21/04/2023 … Cycling into a pigeon isn’t the worst of Lewis Garnham’s embarrassing stories, but it’s the easiest to picture in a slightly unwieldy show title.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
21/04/2023 … Many conversational comedians give the impression they want to be your friend.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
21/04/2023 … Daisy Webb’s factory setting is ‘silly’, as displayed when she giggles coyly at some of her dafter punchlines: ’No, that’s stupid!’ On…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
21/04/2023 … Deadpan’s one thing, but Nick Schuller is lifeless to the point of monotone.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
21/04/2023 … Ange Lavoipierre’s reconstruction of insomnia is artfully created, but is ultimately as frustrating as the real thing as her absurd train of thought becomes…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
20/04/2023 … ‘You suck shit,’ Guy Williams tells his audience.
Review of the Sky Arts documentary featuring Vic Reeves and others
19/04/2023 … Simon Munnery has a great stand-up routine taking issue with a well-meaning critic who described his comedy as ‘the closest thing to art’, as if the…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
18/04/2023 … An hour in Mish Wittrup’s delightful and cheerful company is an absolute joy.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
18/04/2023 … Partly a dumb muckabout, partly a frank-but-funny storytelling show about mental and physical health problems, Greg Larsen’s latest hour is a peculiar…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
18/04/2023 … So Reuben Kaye is dragged on to the stage by Satan’s exposed dick.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
18/04/2023 … Tech issues blight Oliver Coleman’s show tonight.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
17/04/2023 … With some justification, Carl Donnelly claims to have the most offputting title of any comedy festival offering this year.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
17/04/2023 … Fergus Neal has millions of views on TikTok and the confidence and cadence of a club comedian, even in his Melbourne comedy festival debut.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
17/04/2023 … Scout Boxall would never claim to be the slickest comedian in Melbourne this month.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
17/04/2023 … The finalists in the nationwide Raw Comedy talent hunt seem to get stronger each year, but even so, it seemed clear that Henry Yan was the stand-out winner from…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
16/04/2023 … World-weary beyond her years.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
16/04/2023 … Hannah Camilleri is an extraordinary talent – there’s no question about that, following this magnificently assured one-woman sketch show.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
16/04/2023 … Dressed in a suit that appears to be fashioned from the garish orange tablecloth of a tacky 1970s diner, Dani Cabs’s clown persona Poncho is a gleefully upbeat…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
16/04/2023 … He’s a gay, black, Nigerian drag artist; she’s a confrontational white American feminist performance artist.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
15/04/2023 … Australia’s leading – indeed only – sibling Krautrock cabaret parody duo have been at loggerheads ever since they formed.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
14/04/2023 … Good Hustle offers a farewell to some of the characters who have emerged from the bite-sized topical sketches Sammy J has been serving up to ABC viewers for the…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
14/04/2023 … Tom Ballard has long been at peak ‘angry young man’ when it comes to his political comedy.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
13/04/2023 … Back after a five-year hiatus, Steen Raskopolous has not greatly changed his tried-and-true format of mixing audience participation with character-led sketch comedy.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
13/04/2023 … Chris Ryan is rare in being a middle-aged woman relatively new to comedy.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
13/04/2023 … Given that Joshua Ladgrove has just spend spent two-and-a-half years caring for his Ukrainian grandmother, there could be little else for him to write about.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
13/04/2023 … Guy Montgomery can’t believe he’s a man, let alone a stepdad.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
12/04/2023 … Never not interesting, Alice Fraser always sinks her teeth into big, chewy global subjects in her stand-up.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
12/04/2023 … Newcomer Patrick Golamco takes his cue from many of the introverted, awkward comedians who have come before him, deploying such techniques as making swaggering alpha…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
12/04/2023 … Enthusiasm and vim can be vital parts of a live comedy show… but when that’s all you have, the results are usually vacuous.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
12/04/2023 … Dahn Rozario is a natural show-off, right at home being the centre of attention with his livewire delivery of earthy material.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
12/04/2023 … James Nokise exudes the vibes of a man who’s got his shit together.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
11/04/2023 … Billy D’Arcy is every inch the archetypal male stand-up.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
11/04/2023 … For almost 20 years, Heath Franklin has hidden behind the distinctive and luxuriant moustache of Chopper, his exaggerated version of the now-dead violent criminal…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
11/04/2023 … Sashi Perera has had an interesting life.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
11/04/2023 … It’s not the catchiest title ever bestowed upon a comedy show, but Why Is My Bag All Wet? sums up the sort of relatable everyday chaos that befalls Anne Edmonds.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
11/04/2023 … One day, Mel O’Brien and Samantha Andrew will write a darkly comic rock opera that takes Broadway by storm.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
11/04/2023 … Well, that was intense.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
10/04/2023 … Hospitals have long been a rich source of comedy, home to so many humiliating experiences that reduce us all, whoever we are and whatever our supposed sophistication,…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
10/04/2023 … Callum Straford Nails Everything? No he doesn’t.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
10/04/2023 … Cabaret royalty Reuben Kaye has a poetic heart but a vicious tongue.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
10/04/2023 … In the Acknowledgement Of Country message played out before almost every Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, audiences are told of the Aboriginal people’s…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
09/04/2023 … Most sketch comedy performers pick the genre to avoid revealing much about themselves, hiding behind characters instead.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
09/04/2023 … Diva recognise diva.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
08/04/2023 … Vulnerability is the default for so many comedians who use their festival shows to share their weaknesses and insecurities.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
08/04/2023 … Headliners, Melbourne’s annual showcase of ‘late night legends alt-comedy room faves and club champions’ from the US had one of its strongest…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
07/04/2023 … With the internet giving more platforms to more voices – and movements such as MeToo shining more disinfecting light into shady practices – the corrosive…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
07/04/2023 … For many children of the internet, life is a whirl of vacuous, attention-grabbing memes, insecure egotism and toxic jealousy, comparing yourself to the supposedly…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
06/04/2023 … How does Sam Campbell’s brain do it? Come up with so many ideas - all of them wildly original – that fizz and pop in this cauldron of silly insanity.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
06/04/2023 … Thankfully Andrew Hamilton’s jokes are less obvious than his show title.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
06/04/2023 … From his assured manner and punchy delivery, there would be little to indicate Freddie McManus was performing his first solo Melbourne International Comedy Festival…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
05/04/2023 … Now THIS is how you perform stand-up.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
05/04/2023 … It’s a ballsy move for a musical comedian facing that ‘difficult second album’ of show to start with a song called I Got Nothing.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
05/04/2023 … House is a ‘comedy as therapy’ debut from a personable new comedian with a winning openness which needs a bit more sharpness and hunger for a joke to…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
05/04/2023 … Bits Akimbo are loud, brash and dumb, happy to base a sketch around dry-humping a baseball cap, for instance.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
04/04/2023 … From a very simple idea, Gillian Cosgriff has created a joyous, funny, life-affirming show, popping with delightful stand-up, sharp musical numbers and a beautiful…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
04/04/2023 … It’s a Monday night in one of the comedy festival’s less glamorous rooms, but Sam Garlepp bursts out with a cheesy-but-cheery Hamilton parody song…
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
04/04/2023 … Tess Branchflower’s show is about how she moved to London in the hope of reinvention, but failed as she hadn’t really thought about what she hoped to…
03/04/2023 … Glasgow's comedy festival has always attracted a wealth of great acts and been a strong showcase for upcoming local comics.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
03/04/2023 … Not being neurotypical can be a superpower in comedy, granting the vision to make connections and spot absurdities that escape everyone else.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
03/04/2023 … A cobra is the tough, wild and fearsome creature David Quirk would like to identify as.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival review
03/04/2023 … Musical comedy sometimes gets an unfairly bad rap: perhaps that’s why Matt Storer calls what he does ‘jokes that rhyme’.
Steve Bennett visits Western Australia
03/04/2023 … Perth may be the world’s most isolated city, but it can still boast a vibrant comedy scene… as I found out on a flying 48-hour visit.
Glasgow International Comedy Festival review
02/04/2023 … With his cheek mic, casual self-deprecation and love of Lady Gaga, Paul Black is an unlikely spiritual successor to Sam Kinison and Bill Hicks.
© Elina Kansikas Review of the final at Bloomsbury Theatre
01/04/2023 … Kazoos, recorders, violins masquerading as ventriloquists’ dummies… yep, the Musical Comedy Awards were on song for their latest cheery run around the …
Review of the comic's stand-up and music tour
25/03/2023 … A few minutes of Tim Heidecker’s stand-up and you start to see the appeal of reactionary comedians.
© Naomi Dryden-Smith Review of the annual fundraiser at the Royal Albert Hall
22/03/2023 … These straitened times are making it tougher for charities.
Glasgow International Comedy Festival review by Jay Richardson
19/03/2023 … Glaswegian song and sketch trio Weegie Hink Ae That? are testimony to the appeal of localised comedy, boosted by going viral online.
Review of comic's tour as he works towards his next Netflix special
16/03/2023 … How nice it would be to write about Ricky Gervais without going over the same old ‘cancel culture’ talking points which so consumes those who rarely…
Review of the new play set in the world of sitcom writing
13/03/2023 … Set in a workshop for would-be sitcom creators, Jumping The Shark puts one well-known tip above all others: write what you know.
Review of the weekend's comedy – including The Wrestling
06/03/2023 … It’s a tough job launching a comedy festival London, given the the city has hundreds of gigs a week anyway.
© Netflix Review of his live Netflix special that addressed the Will Smith slap
05/03/2023 … This is when a stand-up special becomes the news.
Review of the visiting US stand-up
03/03/2023 … American comedian and little person Brad Williams makes his UK debut not in one of London’s many fine comedy clubs but in a freezing Spiegeltent erected outside…
© Mark Grey (Studio Grey) Review of 15 new acts (plus one pro headliner...)
03/03/2023 … Set up in 2022 to give a profile boost to new comedians struggling post-pandemic, the West End New Act of the Year showcases a lot of acts – no fewer than…
Review of his new Netflix special
28/02/2023 … It’s official: comedy’s man of the moment Jamie Demetriou is funnier than Monty Python.
Review of former double-act comic's solo debut
26/02/2023 … At last! A comedian with the courage to talk about being on the dating apps.
© Mark Senior Review of the puppet caricatures's first stage venture
17/02/2023 … With its fantastic latex caricatures brought to life by astonishingly talented puppeteers and gifted impersonators, the live version of Spitting Image is a triumph…
Review of the Brighton venue's talent hunt
16/02/2023 … There are so many new comedy competitions now that it can be easy to take them for granted.
Review of the comedy show that comes with five free drinks
13/02/2023 … Pub quiz in name only, this long-running tour is the latest way for booze experts Tom Sandham and Ben McFarland to package their alcohol tastings in a fun way.
Review of the new tour from Edinburgh best newcomer and Netflix star
09/02/2023 … With her superb debut, The Twist Is… She’s Gorgeous, Catherine Cohen brilliantly exposed the opposing forces of vanity and insecurity that define the…
Review from the Vault Festival, London
09/02/2023 … The funniest sketch from the wonderfully named double act of Grubby Little Mitts contains just two lines.
Review from the Vault Festival, London
09/02/2023 … When we first see Roisin and Chiara, each are adopting a grotesque parody of the supposed beauty ideal built on Botox, fillers and implants.
Review from the Vault Festival, London
30/01/2023 … Having just turned 30, Ben Pope wittily puts himself in the demographic of ‘old enough to know the dream is dead, not old enough to change’ in its pursuit.
Review of the Taskmaster and Man Like Mobeen star on tour
27/01/2023 … His many TV appearances suggest a larger-than-life personality.
© Tiger Aspect Productions Review of ITVX's new impressions show
26/01/2023 … Today, there’s a news story about how Artificial Intelligence could destroy humanity.
© C4 Review of Channel 4's new apocalyptic cult comedy
23/01/2023 … It’s the end of the world… and it’s remarkably mundane.
© Manuel Harlan Review of Reece Shearsmith and Amanda Abbington in Steven Moffat's comedy
20/01/2023 … How many farces are based on an English character’s social awkwardness and the misunderstandings that arise from their inability to be unambiguous, paralysed…
© Alistair Muir Review of the Jewish comic's tale of meeting racists
19/01/2023 … Alex Edelman barely needs any more praise for Just For Us, given that its much-extended off-Broadway residency last year attracted plaudits from the likes of Jerry…
We see you are using AdBlocker software. Chortle relies on advertisers to fund this website so it’s free for you, so we would ask that you disable it for this site. Our ads are non-intrusive and relevant. Help keep Chortle viable.