The most popular comedy shows in London

This review is from the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Clown princess Natalie Palamides first came to Fringe attention with ‘Laid’, in which she memorably committed to the bit of playing a woman who laid an egg every day, followed by 2018’s landmark ‘Nate’. A hysterically funny but weirdly poignant hour, in it the (topless but with chest hair drawn on) Palamides played the eponymous mess of a man, a pitiable dumpster fire of confused sexuality and toxic masculinity with audience interactions to die for. Picked up by Netflix for a special, it turned her into a hipster global name. Now finally here comes ‘Weer’. A natural evolution from ‘Nate’, its core concept is that Palamides plays both halves of a fractious young couple – Mark and Christina – at the same time, with her outfits and wigs divided asymmetrically down the middle (Mark on the right, Christina on the left) and her flipping from side to side depending on who’s speaking. Add to that, it’s a parody of ‘90s rom coms: it’s set in 1996 and 1999 and the pair are a Gen X couple who meet cute in the most ’90s way possible (I think also Palamides simply wanted to have the opportunity to have Mark repeatedly say ‘it’s Y2Kaaaaay’ in a stoner voice).  It is another virtuoso piece of batshittery from Palamides: on a technical level some of the stuff she’s doing is truly remarkable, especially when she’s mostly playing one character but being the arm of the other. It’s like that thing where you pretend to make out with...

Virtuoso ventriloquist comic Conti mounts a weeklong West End engagement with her latest show in which she puts her trademark mouth mast on hapless audience members for what is described as ‘an unparalleled, unscripted new show that delves deep into who we are, hijacking faces to spark a bold, hysterical reality warp’. Indeed!

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. 

As far as feelgood events go, it doesn’t get much more pure than top-tier stand-up comedy that raises money for those in need. This comedy night at Islington’s beautiful Union Chapel is presented by No Direction Home – a stand-up comedy programme by Counterpoints Arts which mentors comics from refugee and migrant backgrounds. The line-up is still to be announced, but you can expect big laughs, fresh voices and fascinating stories. All proceeds will go to communities in Congo, Ethiopia and Sudan, and you can add a pre-show dinner to your booking at Margins Café, based at the Chapel, which works with people who face homelessness and crisis. 

With three Netflix specials under her belt following the global headlines she made with her merciless set of Trump-baiting at the 2018 White House correspondents’ dinner, US comic Michelle Wolf is now back for some London shows. Wolf’s wide-eyed delivery contrasts nicely with her sharp one-liners and silly meanderings on topics such as sports, dating, gender and politics. She's ace.

This review is from the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The big word-of-mouth comedy hit at the 2024 Fringe is this outlandish yet perversely enjoyable late night gem from newcomer Huddersfield comic Joe Kent-Waters. Kind of like the degenerate, basement-raised offspring of ‘Phoenix Nights’ and ‘League of Gentlemen’ - not to mention Marlowe’s ‘Doctor Faustus’ - the nominal premise is that 24 years ago, Rotherham working men’s club owner Frankie made a pact with infernal powers: they offered him a wish and he asked that they preserve his club exactly how it was - immune to the outside world - until such time as they would return to drag him into hell. I would say that one hundred percent explains what happens in this show, but that’s kind of beside the point. Lumbering on in thick white face makeup that dissolves throughout the sweaty set, Monroe seems part infernal himself. Acting as emcee, he presides over a series of bizarre games, guest acts (all played by Kent-Waters) and audience interactions that do not in any way feel like they would have seemed current in the late ‘90s, or probably the early ’70s.  I was, er, delighted to find myself the participant in one of the interactions: early on Kent-Waters/Frankie – who is a pretty big lad it has to be said – demanded I hand over my wallet. Throughout the remainder of the night I was given a series of absurd, rigged opportunities to win it back – like guessing which marigold glove was filled with scampi fries. That sort of...

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

After a lengthy run last year at the Hammersmith Apollo, the superstar stand-up calls in at The O2 for a night as the climax of his In the Moment world tour. It’s a new set, but the same old Mo, mixing his big-hearted, ultra-relatable yarns with tales from the world of showbiz he now finds himself embroiled in. If you want to see him in a more intimate setting, he’d recording his podcast Beginning, Middle and End at Up the Creek in Greenwich earlier in the month.

Hugely acclaimed comic Shah was only supposed to be at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe for a work-in-progress of his show ‘Ends’: but it went so well that it was reclassified as finished and took home the festival’s top comedy award. The by all accounts tour de force considers what his grandfather – who arrived in the UK in 1965 – would make of the UK today. It returns to Soho for a short stint ahead of a projected Netflix recording.

Jordan Gray’s last show Is It a Bird? – an ebulliant set that featured highly original musings on both superheroes and being transgender – propelled the comic’s star to new hights. Inevitably it also aroused the ire of the not inconsiderable number of people in this country who dislike trans people. We don’t yet know a huge amount about the follow up, but the general inference is it’s about the backlash to Is It a Bird? and also cowboys. Whatever the case, it’ll probably a) include songs b) be very funny.