New Year’s Eve comedy in London

This review is from the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe I really loved Frankie Thompson’s previous Fringe shows Catts and Body Show (the latter made in collaboration with Liv Ello). Both of them were out-there satirical collages of video and voice recordings in which Thompson came across like a clown-world Adam Curtis, with her performance revolving around her dramatically lip syncing to the piece while serving a series of comical, otherworldly looks.  I suppose they gave the impression that Thompson was a gifted but vulnerable Gen Z savant, who barely spoke at all using her own voice: performing, but also hiding behind the recorded audio visuals. While aspects of new show Horrible Things remain distinctly Frankie Thompson – she still lipsyncs to a load of esoteric recordings, she still seems very irritated by the Tories – she now has a voice of her own. Quite a loud one too: clad in a polkadot gown, her persona is as a posh, slightly eccentric despot (think Queenie from Blackadder) who commands the room with a withering imperiousness, pulling faces of pure horror any time anyone threatens to interact with her.  She also vomits a lot. Nothing health and safety need to worry about, but with every dry heave another horrible thing is cued up. Some are nauseating: that recording of a freaky nine-year-old Jacob Reese Mogg you’ve probably heard before; a 1995 interview with the Tory whips office intimating that they’ve smoothed over instances of child rape; Cliff Richard. There...

November is a big, busy month for live comedy, the apex of the autumn touring season. This year’s gig roster is also conspicuously indicative of the mid-season break for SNL UK season two: Paddy Young, Larry Dean and show writer Bella Hull are all finally bringing their acclaimed Edinburgh Festival Fringe shows to London, and newcomer Freddie Meredith finally gets to complete his Soho Theatre run. There’s plenty of other stuff to see besides, from Frankie Thompson’s brilliant Edinburgh Fringe hit Horrible Things to latest shows from Nish Kumar and Bill Bailey. 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.

This review is from the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Paddy Young is annoyingly handsome and has one of the best gigs in British comedy, being the co-anchor of SNL UK’s Weekend Update.  So you’d think a stand-up show bemoaning that he’s a permanently single loser might not entirely convince. But no, he’s all good: Will Sir Be Laughing Alone? kicks off with a joke so kamikaze inappropriate that you have to think there’s a vague chance of it escaping isolation and screwing up his career. So probably best not share it here. Young’s surreal, somewhat poetic set paints him as an arch oddball whose singledom can be attributed to weirdness, moroseness and an inability to comprehend the rules of life in general. He obsesses over the first girl he kissed, reasoning she is the answer to his funk, tracking her down to Copenhagen and planning to fly out to see her; he dates a group of 30 men (called ‘the lads’) all at once, a logistical nightmare; he stews over his housemate’s greater romantic success and takes petty solace in the fact he has the better hair of the two. I would say most of this is very definitely made up, but Young’s stand-up has its own weird artificial gravity that kind of means that even if you don’t believe what he’s saying to, you know what he means: the man we see before us is a massive loser, or at least he is for the purposes of the show. And reality and tall tales are amusingly blurred – I don’t believe Young dated 30 men at once but I do believe he injured...

Nominated for Best Newcomer at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Awards, Freddie Meredith’s Need a Light? is a by all accounts delightful hour of sketch comedy in which Meredith plays a nerdy, wannabe hip loser who spends 60 endearing minutes trying to start conversations with randoms in the smoking area of a club. The show was indeed so successful that Meredith was snapped up by SNL UK shortly after the Fringe, which has necessitated the rescheduling of his Soho run, which promptly sold out

This review is from the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe If the advent of Saturday Night Live UK has offered an Edinburgh Fringe boost for the stars of the show performing here then it’s also offered a calling care to SNL UK’s legion of writers – many of them terrific stand-ups who presumably came close to being included in the performing line-up but there was simply no room for them. One suspects Bella Hull would have been a shoo in if the ‘acerbic female Gen Z stand-up’ slot wasn’t comprehensively filled already by the more famous Ania Magliano, but the volume of press and profiles that have greeted Hull’s latest set suggest she’s waiting in the wings if a vacancy comes up. Who cares if she’s a mean girl when the jokes are this funny? Her schtick on Mad Cow Disease is relentlessly ironic, relentlessly acidic and extremely funny. She wields withering disdain like a samurai with a sword and clearly lies as easily as she breathes, with an opening routine that ends with as spectacularly stone-cold piece of rug-pulling as I’ve ever seen in a comedy show. I’ve no doubt she mines her real life for inspiration: it is not unbelievable that she spent 2025 single; her whole extremely amusing reminiscence about having a chaotic upbringing being raised by her mum and grandma would surely be too random to have made up. But she applies a zingy, lightly poisonous filter to everything – a sequence where she is gratuitously horrible about her flatmate is funny precisely because it’s so...

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.

Eccentric uncle of British comedy Bill Bailey returns with a new set of comedy songs and ramblings that are indeed – if the description is accurate anyway – rooted in his fascination with the Vaudeville era, the last great form of mass entertainment before the arrival of the screen.

London’s Pokémon fans have been totally spoiled this year. In honour of the brand’s 30th birthday, and Pokémon GO’s 10th anniversary, there have been all sorts of Poké-themed events taking place. In January, there was the rare merch drop at the Natural History Museum, followed by the Pokémon Europe International Championships at the ExCeL in February. April saw the opening of the ‘Pokopia Garden’ in west London and in August, there was the huge Team Rocket-themed event in Potters Field Park. And there’s still more to come.  Now, Pokémon has partnered with London’s Science Museum and the European Space Agency to create an exciting new free trail. The Pokémon Space Trail has been designed to coincide with World Space Week. That’s happening from October 4 until October 10, but the event will run until January. Here’s what you can expect.  First, you pick up a free copy of the trail from the Energy Hall, then you set off on your expedition. As you wander through the museum’s galleries, you’ll come across the likes of Pikachu, Lunatone, Arceus and more, alongside large-scale installations and real stories of European space science and exploration.  In the Power Up gallery (a space filled with 160 functioning video games and consoles), you can try your hand at retro games like Pokémon Snap on Nintendo 64, Pokémon Battle Revolution on Wii as well as more up-to-date ones like Pokémon Legends: Z-A on Switch 2. If you’re a keen Pokémon GO-er, the trail will also offer the chance to...

‘You see,’ says Frank Skinner as he releases the bowling ball with extreme precision. ‘Not flamboyant at all.’ The ball smashes into the pins. ‘But,’ he adds with a suggestion of relish, ‘I’m pretty accurate.’ Skinner likes winning. As well as beating the booze – and the odds of a 29-year-old alcoholic from West Bromwich becoming one of our favourite stars – the now 56-year-old comic is responsible for some of our biggest TV hits over the last two decades, from ‘Fantasy Football’ to ‘Room 101’, via a chat show that attracted over ten million viewers. Now he’s expanding his range with a new Sky Arts show alongside veteran critic Joan Bakewell and simultaneously going back to the medium that made his reputation: live stand-up. After wiping the floor with me at Holborn’s All Star Lanes, Skinner sucks on a peanut butter and bacon milkshake and guides me through the game of life. You seem very happy, Frank. Why aren’t more comics as upbeat as you? ‘It’s cooler to be bipolar. If you are genuinely bipolar it’s vile and horrible, but happiness is associated with stupidity. Women used to say to me: “You’re a broken-hearted clown. Behind it all you’re sad, aren’t you?” And I’d say, “No.” Once a couples counsellor asked if I’d ever been suicidal. I thought he was winding me up. I’ve never been to those dark places. I don’t know why – high serotonin levels, my religion?’ Is it true you spend a lot of time meditating? ‘Not as much as I would like to. If you can stop thinking, it’s...

Slapstick comedy sensation Starr attempts to perform every single Penguin Classic novel – from Frankenstein to The Grapes of Wrath – over the course of one joyously bonkers 70-minute show. Do not expect to learn that much about English literature. After several West End stints the show returns as part of a season of work from producer Francesca Moody at The Other Palace.