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...

Nigerian standup Bamgboye took the best newcomer award at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Swings and Roundabouts her debut show 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.

This review is from the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In this sweet debut Fringe hour,  Lewisham-born-and-bred stand up Toussaint Douglass threatens us with 55 minutes of jokes about pigeons.  As a stickler for high-concept shows, I was a little disappointed to discover this was a colossal overstatement: there’s maybe 15 minutes on the ubiquitous winged rats. But they’re 15 good minutes, not least the show’s brilliantly chaotic cold open where Douglass makes one audience member drive a stuffed pigeon strapped to a remote control car around the room while others are made to try and feed it bread. For the most part Accessible Pigeon Material is a show about Douglass and his family, though he has a pleasingly idiosyncratic way of approaching what might otherwise be fairly humdrum material. There’s some great gags about Lewisham and some charming stuff about living with his ‘87-year-old flatmate’ (ie his nan, for whom pigeons were emblematic of the UK when she arrived with the Windrush generation). Best of all is a sequence where he roleplays his geezerish father while an audience member is forced to play the part of a younger Douglass trying to get his pathologically undemonstrative old man to say ‘I love you’. That this last gag isn’t pursued with quite the self lacerating viciousness it could be is indicative of the fact that Douglass basically seems like a really nice guy, making a show about the things that interest him (which includes pigeons). Perhaps he’d benefit...

Fancy yourself a bit of a comedian? Ever wanted to go on a game show? Now is your chance. The Audience Vs is a brand-new live comedy gaming show, where audience members go head to head with real-life celebs. Hosted by Glenn Moore, created by journalist Simon Parkin and produced by Taskmaster honchos Avalon, the game will see punters battle comedians in retro video games, including Mario Kart, Street Fighter and Grand Theft Auto. Previous guests include Phil Wang, Sarah Keyworth, Ellie Gibson, and Sooz Kempner, with upcoming guests including Frankie Ward, Iain Stirling, Jamali Maddix and John Robertson. 

Leftfield comedian Rooke looks back on – and adds a lot of words to the name of – his 2015 debut show Good Grief, a light-hearted attempt to come to terms with the death of his father, co-written with his nan. This new version isn’t just a revival of an old show – though it includes bit of it – but is rather a look back at the highs and lows of a career founded in discussing a personal tragedy. 

TV stalwart and lad adjecent comic Petts smartly deconstructs her childhood at the height of lad culture and how it’s gone on to influence her life, comedy and outlook.

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

Ten years ago, Louis CK was an alt. comedy hero, renowned and approved of for his self-eviscerating, sardonically right-on routines. Then, in 2017, a group of female comedians accused him of sexual misconduct, allegations he held his hand up to. He now exists in a weird hinterland: he’s seemingly inextricably alienated from critical favour and a good chunk of his original base, and cancelled from mainstream cuture, at least. But he remains fairly popular, and if you accept his apology as sincere there are certainly more problematic cultural figures you could be giving your money to, even if the core of righteousness that powered his glory days has long evaporated. 

Taskmaster hero Ivo Graham headlines this fundraiser for Palestine, organaised by Gazan para-cycling team the Gaza Sunbirds. He’ll be joined by Amir El-Masry, Fatiha El-Ghorri, Karl Porter, Finlay Christie, Thomas Green, Tez Ilyas, Sami Abu-Wardeh and Sukina Noor for an evening of comedy and poetry.