The most popular comedy shows in London

For 43 years, Banana Cabaret has been a much-loved fixture on London's comedy circuit. Hosted by Balham pub The Bedford, it's nurtured talents including Lee Mack and Sara Pascoe, and has been central to the birth of the UK's alternative comedy movement. Now, its producer Dave Vickers is ready to retire, and he's throwing one last big bash to celebrate. Banana Cabaret's farewell festival goes on throughout May, with a packed line-up of big comedy names, including Al Murray doing his touring show 'All You Need Is Guv', and mixed bills with the likes of Zoe Lyons, Milton Jones, Luisa Omelan, and many more. Until then, Best of Banana Cabaret shows will run every weekend in March and April, with special guest appearances including Tim Vine and Harry Hill.

High concept comic weird Brookes last popped out of his lair a couple of years ago with Fontanelle, a show that – contrary to its name – was kind of (kind of) his attempt to do a musical about the Titanic. We don’t really know what the pungently named Until You Stop Screaming is about with any great certainty, but apparently it’s ‘inspired by an absolutely shocking incident on a train’. Expect it to be weird and funny.

Nigerian standup Bamgboye took the best newcomer award at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe with her debut show Swings and Roundabouts which charted her move to the UK in her twenties, and showcased her often disorientating mastery of accents. Critics praised her confidence, poise and original, outsider-ish eye on British culture and it bagged her a place in the starting line up for Saturday Night Live UK, with this latest Soho Theatre run meaning she is possibly the first member of the line-up to return to liver perfomance (it’s also not 100% clear if the Saturday night show will actually happen, given the live sketch show has extended beyond its original run and is due to be on that night).

In this acclaimed but wilfully low-key improv-based show, David Elms – best known as Nick Mohammed’s sidekick – does indeed describe a room. Admittedly not the one the audience is in, but one the audience has input into in an droll riff on a classic theatre warm-up exercise.

Touring edition of the long-running, longform horror comedy podcast. Core cast members Cecil Baldwin, Symphony Sanders and Jeffrey Cranor plus special guests will bring us the story of  Murder Night in Blood Forest, a new adventure set in the improbably supernatural event-filled Arizona town of Night Vale. Though there will doubtless be Easter eggs aplenty it’s explicitly billed as not requiring knowlege of the podcast to follow, so pals and loved ones have no excuse not to come.

This magic extravaganza is inspired by the improbably successful ‘white collar crime fighting magicians’ Now You See Me series of films, although rather than a play or musical it’s very much ‘some guys doing spectacular magic tricks in the loose guise of the films’ Four Horsemen’. It’s a big glitzy spectacle that’s wowed audiences in Sydney (where it originates) and Singapore and now it’s headed our way for a summer 2026 stint. ‘Our’ Horsemen will be illusionist Enzo Weyne, escapologist Andrew Basso, ‘dynamic rising star of modern magic’ Gabriella Lester and ‘award-winning British magician and master storyteller’ Matthew Pomeroy.

Smart observational humour combined with a couple of sublime set-piece shaggy dog stories powers the most successful show to date from South African-born Brit stand-up Novellie.

Thanks to the ongoing cult behemoth that is Taskmaster, its host Greg Davies finds his stand up career hitting new highs, with a month of shows at the Apollo for his new show Full Fat Legend to be followed in December with his debut at the O2 – his biggest show to date. Despite the immodest name, the new show is, in essence, an autobiographical exploration of what an idiot he is. 

Ania Magliano has been working up to A-lister stand-up status throughout her twenties, which are still very much an ongoing concern. She might have made it anyway, but stints on Taskmaster and Saturday Night Live UK have made her veritably superstar adjacant as she returns with her first new show in a couple of years. Her schtick very much revolves around laidback anecdotes and observations, but it’s her gossipy, conspiratorial delivery and send up of Gen Z moralising that defines her brilliance.

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