thu 09/01/2025

standup comedy

Emily Atack, Clapham Grand review - I'm a Celebrity... star's first solo show

Most people know Emily Atack from The Inbetweeners, where she played Charlotte, the object of Will's desire. More recently, she found new fans as the runner-up on 2018's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! Now she is performing in her first solo...

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Reginald D Hunter, Princes Hall Aldershot review - underpowered but the laughs come through

Reginald D Hunter drops the n-bomb near the top of the show. He means no offence, he tells the audience, but it's the vernacular where he comes from in Georgia. And besides, using that word, as well as expressing some trenchant opinions about the...

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Krater Comedy Club, Brighton Komedia 25th Birthday review - a south coast institution celebrates

The Komedia is a Brighton Institution and celebrates its birthday tonight in a suitably raucous fashion. The Komedia began in 1994, founded by the directors of the Umbrella Theatre Company, and styled on the cabaret spaces they’d experienced touring...

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Tommy Tiernan, Shepherd's Bush Empire review - playful and poetic

Tommy Tiernan is something of an institution in his native Ireland, as a stand-up comic, newspaper columnist, sometime chat show host and full-time controversialist. Now his appearance as Da Gerry in Channel 4's Derry Girls has brought him to a...

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Angela Barnes, Blackheath Halls review - a pessimist turning the tables

Angela Barnes is one of life’s pessimists, she tells us at the top of the hour, but she’s trying not to be so world-weary, and to turn negatives into positives. And, while there’s so much awfulness going on around us, why not try to lighten the mood...

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Ed Gamble, The Stand review - amiable hour touching on personal issues

Ed Gamble starts the hour by telling us why his latest show is called Blizzard; he and a bunch of comic friends we stranded in New York by bad weather and it made the news - yet, strangely, the headline wasn’t a play on his name - a gift for hacks...

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Lou Sanders, Soho Theatre review - shame put under the spotlight

Have you ever felt the hot shame of saying or doing the wrong thing? Not just embarrassment – that's for amateurs, says Lou Sanders in her wonderfully honest and revealing show Shame Pig, in which she essays some of her life's red-faced moments....

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Lost Voice Guy, Soho Theatre review - Britain's Got Talent winner finds the funny in disability

Lost Voice Guy – aka Lee Ridley – won Britain’s Got Talent last year. He's a unique talent in that his cerebral palsy means he is unable to speak, and so he delivers his comedy through a synthesizer controlled via his iPad.If you saw him on BGT, you...

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Daniel Sloss, Leicester Square Theatre review - toxic masculinity examined

Daniel Sloss's latest show is called X, to denote his 10th show. The Scottish comic started in comedy as a teenager in 2009 when a lot of his material was knob and wank gags, but in recent years his work has had a progressively edgier feel,...

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James Acaster, Phoenix Theatre review - a masterclass in comedy

There's a story in James Acaster's superb new show at the Phoenix Theatre which hangs on him being the first UK comic to shoot several Netflix specials. He doesn't tells us this to boast; far from it. It's to set up another long-form gag, one of...

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Leicester Comedy Festival Gala Preview Show review - an entertaining mixed bag

Suited and booted, Tom Allen and Suzi Ruffell presented this gala preview to the Leicester Comedy Festival, which is now in its 26th year and starts next month. The comics, who do an occasional podcast together called Like Minded, make an engaging...

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Hari Kondabolu, Soho Theatre review - from politics to papayas

As openings go, the first night of Hari Kondabolu's standup residency at Soho Theatre was pretty memorable, so get to American Hour in good time as he is trying to pull off the same trick when he can (no spoilers, but it involves quite a bit of...

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