…that have been announced so far. Get booking for the stand-up shows we’re most looking forward to
John Kearns – Shtick
In the last 12 months John Kearns has gone from Houses of Parliament tour guide to the most-talked about alt-comedian in the country after he bagged this year’s Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award. The tonsure-wig wearing stand-up won Best Newcomer in 2013, making him the first act to win the main award the following year. In ‘Shtick’, Kearns explained how winning last year’s prize changed his life and that his snaggly false-teeth wearing ‘character’ was now ‘a joke that got out of hand’. It was satisfyingly meta without being too in-jokey and, despite the wig and dentures, this wasn’t a character piece: this was the real Kearns expressing his wonderfully offbeat feelings behind the safety blanket of his ‘costume’. A worthy win from a comic who’s quickly establishing himself as one of the most original voices on the circuit.
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Without a doubt, 2014 has been another bumper 12 months for live comedy. Half of the year was spent speculating over Monty Python’s epic ten-night reunion at the O2: would it be a nostalgic triumph from the godfathers of sketch comedy, or an embarrassing disaster from a bunch of past-it performers?* And the last six months have been about celebrating the breakthrough performers from August’s Edinburgh Fringe, reading think-pieces about Dapper Laughs and shouting ‘Bill Cosby?!’ at the top of our lungs.
With such grim stories (see Dapper and Cosby) filling Twitter timelines these past few months, it’s easy to forget that 2014 was actually a blinder of a year for live funnies. For every minute of Dapper Laughs’s dire TV series there were dozens of smart, inventive, belly-achingly funny comedy shows. Here are our ten favourites.
*It turned out to be neither: it was simply a reasonably good fun quote-a-long celebration of the troupe’s output. Read our review.
2015, you have a lot to live up to
Our comprehensive list of the biggest names heading to London next year
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