July is upon us and the spectre of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has hovered into view. Even if you have no intention of crossing the border this August, the gargantuan Scottish festival has a clear effect on the London comedy scene: this month our city is is groaning with work in progress previews of the Fringe’s likely highlights, and you can easily sample the best of the Fringe without going any further north than Soho Theatre.
There’s also plenty more fun besides: Tim Minchin returns to live service, Stewart Lee moves to the Southbank Centre, and cult movie critic parody On Cinema has a string of live performances in Walthamstow.
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.
What is it? The Edinburgh Fringe is almost upon us and let’s be honest, not everyone reading this is actually going to find the time and money to go and visit. But if you’re into comedy then get yourself down to Soho Theatre this month where many of the biggest and best shows of the 2025 Fringe will be previewing: picks include Tim Key, Toussaint Douglass (pictured main), Cat Cohen (pictured), Urooj Ashfaq and more.
Where is it? Soho Theatre Dean Street.
What is it? Neon Nights is the gorgeous Soho Theatre Walthamstow’s monthly showcase spectactular and typiclaly features a big name headliner with stars ion various degrees of rising in support. This month’s show is headlined by Phil Wang with Catherine Bohart as host and Olga Koch, Jin Hao Li, Josh Pugh and Fatiha El-Ghorri supporting.
Where is it? Soho Theatre Walthamstow.
What is it? The absurdly successful comedy theatre troupe Mischief follow up The Play That Goes Wrong, Magic Goes Wrong, The Comedy About a Bank Robbery etc etc with a new one about Cold War spies.
Where it it? Noël Coward Theatre.
Why go? Mischief offer solid old fashioned comedy laughs ever time, and while the wheel is never going to be reinvented, they’re nothing if not reliably amusing.
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