The most popular comedy shows 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. 

Ultimate millennial wit Amstell returns to live action with a storytelling based show that revolves around his achieving a measure of contentedness in middle age and how a chance encounter with a former pop star crush at an LA party threatened to jeapordise that. If the word ‘storytelling’ sounds like a red flag meaning ‘no jokes’ then fear not: reviews of I Love It Here’s initial London run suggest that despite its thematic coherency, it’s basically business as usual for the self-lacerating introvert.

Comic John Tothill’s faux-libertine schtick received a considerable shot in the arm when his appendix burst live on stage, just a few days into his 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe run. He recovered, fortunately, and bounced back last year with a show that mused amusingly on these events and the alleged attempted assassination of Donald Trump, which had happened just a few days previously. 

In his latest dizzyingly high concept show, avant comedy legend Stewart Lee bemoans his irrelevance – something he’s been been bemoaning for decades, often with zeitgeisty results – in a new show in which he promises to unleash a new, callously offensive stage persona to compete with the likes of Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle. The Man-Wulf is, apparently, ‘a tough-talking werewolf comedian from the dark forests of the subconscious who hates humanity’. Expect nuclear levels of irony. 

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 KATE, her extremely high concept last show, Kate Berlant’s generically titled latest sounds like it might just be an evening of whatever the smart, surreal US standup happens to be working on at the time, with no big concept. And we’ll absolutely take that!

Even by the fairly vague naming conventions of stand up comedy shows, it’s hard to imagine what sardonic Anglo-Russian Olga Koch’s new show Fat Tom Cruise will be about. Apparently it revolves around a story Koch has to tell. And furthermore, it’s a genre-defying show with immersive elements. In the world of solo stand-up shows this could mean everything or nothing, but Koch is an undoubtable pro and if she’s stretching her wings a bit formally then so much the better.

This absurd existential clown show is allegedly about ‘nothing’, although in truth the duo of Sam Kruger and SE Grummett fail to stay on point spectacularly in a genitals-heavy affair that finds room for puppet Joni Mitchell, a techno concert, and a pantomime horse. The best kind of insane, if you’re in the market for that. 

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