The most popular comedy shows in London

This atmosphere-heavy, nostalgia-suffused second show from Singapore-raised comic Hao deliberately intercuts the mythic and the mundane – the arty stuff and the gags – as it details his longing for home as his moves to unfamiliar London. It’s certainlty quite a different style of comedy but it is funny as well as the more out there stuff, and it bagged Hao an unexpected but not unwelcome place of the Edinburgh Comedy Award shortlist this Fringe.

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.

One of the buzziest late night shows of this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Soul Sewage is Sam Eley’s debut hour as Basil Crumbwick – a horny, embittered old man with a papier maché head. Both uncomfortable and hilarious, it’s recreating some of that Fringe magic by being staged about as late as Soho Theatre goes, or at least it is for its initial October run. That’s now sold out, but Eley (and Basil) will be back for another crack at it in January 2027.

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

Beloved Drag Race UK winner Johnson returns with a new night of comedy that we’re told ‘harks back to the psychedelic creativity of the 1970s which flourished during political unrest’. Psychedelic drag comedy? Sounds good!

Sir Lenny Henry has long since transcended being a ‘mere’ comedian – if he ever really was – with a career that has long leant more towards the stage, kids’ books and general elder statesman-ing. He’s still got it, though: aged 67 he heads out on his first stand-up tour in over a decade with Still at Large. His first since 2010, it’s billed as ‘part stand-up, part storytelling and part conversation’.

The Brit comedy superstar grapples with fame and fortune in his latest show, which kicks off in London in the autumn at the Apollo, heads across the country and throughout Europe, then call in at The O2 for a pre-Christmas victory lap.

Thanks to the ongoing cult behemoth that is Taskmaster, its host Greg Davies finds his stand up career hitting new highs, with a month of shows at the Apollo for his new show Full Fat Legend to be followed in December with his debut at the O2 – his biggest show to date. Despite the immodest name, the new show is, in essence, an autobiographical exploration of what an idiot he is. 

15 acts compete in this heat of the 2013 Laughing Horse New Act of the Year competition, plus MC Lewis Bryan.