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 yourself

  You have a nagging problem in your life, who are you turning to? Your friends? Your therapist? What about your favourite agony aunt? Ultimately, the concept is flawed because it’s impossible to expect some celebrity journalist to sort your life out. Getting a clown to do it makes just as much sense, really.  Julia Masli’s widely acclaimed live agony aunt show was a runaway hit at the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. On its opening night at Soho Theatre, the Estonian comedian comes out in a kind of deconstructed pantomime gown, bowling shoes and on her left arm, a full-sized mannequin leg with a microphone at the end. Beaming a light from the bike helmet on her head like a kind of ‘X-Files’ alien, she approaches audience members with laser-focus, asking, ‘Problem?’. The idea behind this wonderfully odd setup is that a problem shared is a problem halved.  A clown by trade, Masli’s 2022 show ‘Choosh’ traced a migrant’s journey from Eastern Europe to the US through Chaplin-style slapstick. This nonsensical humour underpins her style of stunt comedy, yet you can’t escape the sense of real earnestness coming from our hipster host. She plays the part of an innocent, otherworldly naif with aplomb.  The show is part-meditation (our host enters to the slow voiceover of ‘ha, ha, ha,’), part-group therapy session. And the direction of it is completely determined by the audience. Tonight, the issues range from the mundane ‘my dog barks at foxes’ to the all too relatable ‘my boss is shit’

The superstar stand-up returns to his second home the Hammersmith Apollo for a fresh run of shows, part of his In the Moment world tour. It’s a new set, but odds are extremely high that it’ll be the same old Mo, mixing his big-hearted, ultra-relatable yarns with tales from the world of showbiz he now finds himself embroiled in. 

US magician Jamie Allan was last seen in the UK with hit show ‘iMagician’ and now he’s back for with his new show ‘Amaze’, which transfers to the West End after a summer residency at the Marylebone Theatre. Expect an impressive evening of technologically-augmented illusions.

The endearingly – if often ascerbically – eccentric German comic returns with a new show in which he promises to offer ‘an unbiased look at climate change’. Word from the tour suggests that this is not really what the show’s about and he was probably just having some fun with the pun, but word also suggests another charmingly spiky hour of German-crafted oddity.

This review is from the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The big word-of-mouth comedy hit at the 2024 Fringe is this outlandish yet perversely enjoyable late night gem from newcomer Huddersfield comic Joe Kent-Waters. Kind of like the degenerate, basement-raised offspring of ‘Phoenix Nights’ and ‘League of Gentlemen’ - not to mention Marlowe’s ‘Doctor Faustus’ - the nominal premise is that 24 years ago, Rotherham working men’s club owner Frankie made a pact with infernal powers: they offered him a wish and he asked that they preserve his club exactly how it was - immune to the outside world - until such time as they would return to drag him into hell. I would say that one hundred percent explains what happens in this show, but that’s kind of beside the point. Lumbering on in thick white face makeup that dissolves throughout the sweaty set, Monroe seems part infernal himself. Acting as emcee, he presides over a series of bizarre games, guest acts (all played by Kent-Waters) and audience interactions that do not in any way feel like they would have seemed current in the late ‘90s, or probably the early ’70s.  I was, er, delighted to find myself the participant in one of the interactions: early on Kent-Waters/Frankie – who is a pretty big lad it has to be said – demanded I hand over my wallet. Throughout the remainder of the night I was given a series of absurd, rigged opportunities to win it back – like guessing which marigold glove was filled with scampi fries. That sort of thi

Amy Gledhill’s second solo show won the main comedy award at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. As such this brief initial Soho Theatre stint for her widely praised set revolving around questions of body image is pretty damn sold out, though you might get lucky with a return. Otherwise remember the name as she’s sure to be back for a longer run soon (and has a date at Leicester Square Theatre in November).

David Blaine collaborator and master of mindreading Asi Wind bring his new show to the Boulevard for a stint.

The time is finally nigh. After a huge rush all the way back in 2022 to bag tickets for Peter Kay’s huge comeback tour, his residency at the O2 arena is here. Last yeat the Bolton funny man began his first stand up tour in 12 years, and now to round it all off in epic style he’s pulling an Elvis-style move and doing a monthly residency at the O2 Arena – the first stand-up in the world to do so. The gigs will continue all the way into 2025, so even if you missed out on tickets the first time round there should be plenty of opportunity to catch the Lancastrian’s signature gags, guffaws and one-liners in the capital. 

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