New Year’s Eve comedy in London

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. Ferbruary is a relatively quiet month after the business of the Christmas season and its aftermath, but there’s still plenty of laugh to be had, from the London debut of Jordan Brookes’s batshit mental Titanic opus Fontanelle, to a last chance to see the live Taskmaster show (for now). The best comedy clubs in London.The best new theatre shows to book for in London.

London has the biggest and best comedy scene in the world, so if you love a good laugh (or a good heckle) you're in the right place. From tiny basements and rooms above pubs to boats to huge venues, there’s comedy in the capital for comedians (and audiences) of all shapes and sizes. But not all spaces are created equal. Avoid getting sucked into a rip-off joint with a vibe that's deader than Monty Python's notorious parrot with our list of London’s liveliest and best comedy nights and clubs. Whether you're up for try-out nights at pocket money prices or massive gigs from names off the telly, here's where to look for your next comedy night out. RECOMMENDED: Here are the very best cinemas in London.

This review is from the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe. What a title: in a world where comedy shows can have borderline meaningless conceits attached to them, ‘The Good Place’ writer Demi Adejuyigbe’s debut Fringe show offers us the pure promise of at least one honest piece of entertainment. WouId I pay to see a trained acrobat do a single backflip? No. Would I pay to see an untrained comedian do one? I think I would! The flip is both heavily teased and cleverly not made overly central to what is essentially an hour of imaginative, multimedia0-enhanced sketch comedy masquerading as a confessional solo show. In brief, Adejuyigbe wants to impress his ‘crush’ by doing said backflip, but she’s not here yet: she’s at a celebrity party he wasn’t invited to. And so he’s going to give us a presentation that runs the gamut from a parody of songs that parody ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ to an invitation for a member of the audience to punch him in the stomach. It’s all very DIY but it’s also slickly entertaining – I wouldn’t say it’s exactly apolitical but I would say that you can absolutely see why the man was hired to work on a quirky but populist multi Emmy-nominated comedy smash. As for the backflip - well, I’m not going to spoiler what happens exactly, but it manages to be both an allegory for artistic vulnerability and forging ahead against the odds… and a really intentionally stupid momen. You’ll see more self-consciously important comedy shows this Fringe, but few more out and out fun.

This review is from the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. High-concept verging on slightly terrifying, comic Jordan Brookes’s latest is show is about the not uncommon subject of getting older. Kind of. In a way. Brookes’s response to the ongoing passing of his thirties is, apparently, to get really into the story of the RMS Titanic, ‘because that’s the sort of thing that people do’. Perversely, Fontanelle takes its name from a digressionary passage in which Brookes goes off on one about his fascination with the titular soft bit of babies’ heads and how if adults still had it, it would probably get used as a really dumb suicide button. If we’re saying everything has its place here, then I think the inference is the Titanic is what Brookes has gotten into in lieu of having children of his own to focus on. But that may be overthinking it. And the show really is quite a lot about the Titanic.  Coming out wearing what turns out to be a miniature captain’s hat the actual boat, the film and most crucially the relatively obscure stage musical all feature heavily in the material. Brookes apparently made a three hour round trip to see the musical in Southampton and thought it was shit, and therefore decided he'd write his own, which we’re subjected to in increasingly larger, madder doses as the show wears on. There are things about Fontanelle that it would be unfair to spoil. But easiest to say that it’s remarkable Brookes thinks of this stuff and even more so that he has managed to...

The surrealist comedy legend and prog lover returns to the West End with a new show in which he promises to celebrate flawed humanity in an age where things can increasingly be done better by machine.

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. 

Amy Gledhill’s second solo show won the main comedy award at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. A brief initial Soho Theatre stint for her widely praised set revolving around questions of body image sold out instantly, but now she’s back with a bigger run in Soho’s biggest theatre.

Whether you’ve been a fan since the days of That Peter Kay Thing or you’ve recently discovered his sketches on TikTok, the chances are you’re familiar with Peter Kay, one of the UK’s most beloved comedians. And that’s shown by the sheer number of gigs he’s playing this year – in fact, Kay is the first ever artist to perform a monthly residency at Greenwich’s massive O2 Arena. A heck of a lot of Londoners are going to get to see Peter Kay live over the next 12 months, and those gigs continue this weekend. This Saturday (January 6), Kay takes to the O2 as part of his first tour in 12 years. Here’s everything you need to know about the show – and all the ones after that. RECOMMENDED: How to get tickets for Peter Kay’s 2023 tour  When is Peter Kay at London’s O2 Arena? Peter Kay’s next show at the O2 is on Saturday, January 6 2024. After that, he’ll play loads more dates. Here are those in full: February 24, 2024 March 23, 2024 April 20, 2024 May 4, 2024 June 2, 2024 July 13, 2024 August 10, 2024 September 7, 2024 October 8, 2024 November 16, 2024 December 5. 2024 January 25, 2025 February 22, 2025 March 20, 2025 April 4, 2025 What time will he come on stage? Kay is set to take to the stage at 8pm. What time do doors open at the London O2? Doors will open at 6:30pm and it should end by the O2’s curfew, which is 11pm.  Are there any tickets left? According to ticketing platform AXS, there are still some tickets left for the January 6 show. How much are tickets?  You can...

Following a whole host of sell-out performances of this cult show all over the world, Shaggers returns to Leicester Square for another special show this V-day. Having a laugh at these comedians, who are of a variety of sexes, genders and orientations, could be a fun way to mix things up on the most romantic day of the year. The show is around two hours long, including an interval, and – as you might have guessed from the name – is all about sex. The ticket price includes a £2 restoration levy for this historic London venue.

A great pub in Angel that has a charming beer garden out front and an events space upstairs, where Angel Comedy calls home (as well as The Bill Murray down the road). There are excellent comedy line-ups here every night and they're always free.