New Year’s Eve comedy in London

Another quiet-ish month for comedy in London – the calm before the Edinburgh Fringe previews emerge – but as ever there’s still plenty on, mind, with James Acaster wrapping up his eccentric tour of London and your first opportunity to see a member of the SNL UK cast live since the show first aired. There are far, far too many one-off, multi-performer comedy nights in London for us to compile a single coherent page with our favouites on, which is entirely to London’s credit. So do check individual bills of comedy clubs online for that sort of thing. But if you’re looking for an individual comedian with a full headline show then this page is here to compile the Time Out editorial team’s top choices, often with our reviews from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The best comedy clubs in London.The best new theatre shows to book for in London.

London has the biggest and best comedy scene in the world, so if you love a good laugh (or a good heckle) you're in the right place. From tiny basements and rooms above pubs to boats to huge venues, there’s comedy in the capital for comedians (and audiences) of all shapes and sizes. But not all spaces are created equal. Avoid getting sucked into a rip-off joint with a vibe that's deader than Monty Python's notorious parrot with our list of London’s liveliest and best comedy nights and clubs. Whether you're up for try-out nights at pocket money prices or massive gigs from names off the telly, here's where to look for your next comedy night out. RECOMMENDED: Here are the very best cinemas in London.

Fancy yourself a bit of a comedian? Ever wanted to go on a game show? Now is your chance. The Audience Vs is a brand-new live comedy gaming show, where audience members go head to head with real-life celebs. Hosted by Glenn Moore, created by journalist Simon Parkin and produced by Taskmaster honchos Avalon, the game will see punters battle comedians in retro video games, including Mario Kart, Street Fighter and Grand Theft Auto. Previous guests include Phil Wang, Sarah Keyworth, Ellie Gibson, and Sooz Kempner, with upcoming guests including Frankie Ward, Iain Stirling, Jamali Maddix and John Robertson. 

For 43 years, Banana Cabaret has been a much-loved fixture on London's comedy circuit. Hosted by Balham pub The Bedford, it's nurtured talents including Lee Mack and Sara Pascoe, and has been central to the birth of the UK's alternative comedy movement. Now, its producer Dave Vickers is ready to retire, and he's throwing one last big bash to celebrate. Banana Cabaret's farewell festival goes on throughout May, with a packed line-up of big comedy names, including Al Murray doing his touring show 'All You Need Is Guv', and mixed bills with the likes of Zoe Lyons, Milton Jones, Luisa Omelan, and many more. Until then, Best of Banana Cabaret shows will run every weekend in March and April, with special guest appearances including Tim Vine and Harry Hill.

As the unofficial comedy capital of the world, London's comedy circuit doesn't take a break. There are stand-up shows seven days a week, from early evening through to the small hours. To help you plan your week of witticisms, here's a nifty calendar of regular comedy shows in London.

Think of your favourite mainstream comedian – there’s a good chance they cut their comedy teeth at Balham’s Banana Cabaret, which is sadly set to close after more than four decades in the biz. Housed in the Bedford, a pub and live music space with capacity for an audience of 250, Banana Cabaret was launched in 1983. This makes it one of London’s longest-running comedy clubs to maintain residency in the same venue (just behind top dog Downstairs at the King’s Head in Crouch End). Famous comics who’ve previously tread its boards include Eddie Izzard, Sara Pascoe, Ed Byrne, Lee Evans, Jo Brand, Zoe Lyons, Jack Dee, Rob Brydon, Sarah Millican and Catherine Tate. All in all, then, its departure isn’t great news for London comedy – but it’s not all doom and gloom. Before it splits, Banana Cabaret will host a Farewell Festival, with Byrne and Lyons joined by the likes of Al Murray, Marcus Brigstocke, Lucy Porter and Simon Evans. In total, 45 acts will perform across 11 shows at the venue throughout May, while Tim Vine and Harry Hill are due to make guest appearances at the Best of Banana Cabaret, which will run every weekend in March and April. Ed Byrne, a staunch fan of the long-running comedy institution, described Banana Cabaret as ‘one of the truly great comedy clubs in the UK’. So, why is Banana Cabaret shutting up shop? When producer Dave Vickers announced the news on Instagram in February, he explained: ‘I’m ready to retire. I’ve loved it, there have been so many amazing...

Nigerian standup Bamgboye took the best newcomer award at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe with her debut show Swings and Roundabouts which charted her move to the UK in her twenties, and showcased her often disorientating mastery of accents. Critics praised her confidence, poise and original, outsider-ish eye on British culture and it bagged her a place in the starting line up for Saturday Night Live UK, with this latest Soho Theatre run meaning she is possibly the first member of the line-up to return to liver perfomance (it’s also not 100% clear if the Saturday night show will actually happen, given the live sketch show has extended beyond its original run and is due to be on that night).

It’s my first visit to London’s newest theatre, and the press officer says she wants to hang about for a bit: ‘just until I see the look on your face when you see the auditorium for the first time’.  I immediately start worrying that I’ll offend everyone by not looking impressed enough, but it’s all good: my jaw duly thuds to the floor when I step into the main house of Soho Theatre Walthamstow.  The ‘original’ Soho Theatre on Dean Street in central London is a truly wonderful comedy, cabaret and theatre venue, but the building is not what you’d call architecturally noteworthy. Soho Theatre Walthamstow is a different matter entirely.  Photo: David Levene It has a long and complicated history, but the short version is that it opened in 1930 as The Granada, a 2,700-seat cinema on busy Hoe Street. It eventually fell into disrepair. Now it’s been born again as a 1,000-seat comedy and theatre venue. And it looks incredible. While the exterior has been given a clean, white, unobtrusive paint job that brings it somewhat in line with the Dean Street venue, the inside is like stepping back in time – a ravishing art deco masterpiece so instantly iconic that I feel a twinge of frustration that it’s just been sitting here unused for decades.  The slide into dereliction The original Granada cinema was a special place: built by prolific London theatre architect Cecil Masey and with interiors by the great stage designer Theodore Komisarjevsky, it was beloved by noted Leytonstone...

It seems pretty apparent by now that a second season of Matthew Holness’s sublimely preposterous haunted hospital soap opera Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace is not going to be forthcoming. However, Holness’s monumentally self-important, subtext-loathing horror author Marenghi lives on and he’s got a new book out: This Bursted Earth, a trio of monumentally overripe tales of dread. And he’s got an in character book tour, which is about as close as you’re going to get to Darkplace in this day and age and is arguably a more fun way to consume Holness’ contemporary work than actually reading an entire book of deliberately bad horror.

‘My main goal of the show, and my life, is to clear the name of Yoko Ono,’ says James Acaster, matter-of-factly, at the top of his show. Quite how we get there via examining his love of mariachi music, or the identities of Percy Pig’s mates, we’re not sure. But it all seems to make sense, at the time. Honest. Three solo shows in, and Acaster’s quickly becoming a reliable Fringe favourite. The Kettering-born comic is quiet, pedantic and refreshingly low-key. He's in no rush to get laughs, his shows are slow-burners, but every carefully chosen word or pause builds up to a sturdy, satisfying punchline. From Twister-etiquette to French rhyme structures, the Marks and Spencer-donning comic has a knack for flipping observational comedy on its head, studiously examining things most of us have dismissed as inconsequential. His confident, yet gawky, persona is wonderfully aloof, too. But what Acaster has mastered, which most comics fail at, is structuring an hour-long show. Seemingly throwaway jokes cleverly re-emerge, and no callbacks are crowbarred in. By the end of the hour you’re totally sucked into his minute, quizzical world, where Yoko Ono is addicted to biscuits, and Joe Bloggs is a prat. And it’s a wonderful world to visit. See 'James Acaster – Lawnmower' at the Edinburgh Fringe