Catherine Bohart opens by telling us that we're seeing her at the beginning of a long tour – before her energy flags, she says. It's difficult to believe, however, that the Irishwoman ever performs at anything less than full throttle, and so it proves here with Again, With Feelings, a show about where her life is at the moment.She's 35 and very definitely not where she thought she would be – and certainly not where her parents might have hoped; married, with kids and owning a house. Instead Bohart is unmarried, child-free and her living arrangements... Well she fills us in on those, as she Read more ...

It takes a talented comic to turn a horrible life experience into comedy, but Miles Jupp is nothing if not talented. Add in a bit of self-depreciation, a smidgen of philosophical musing and a dollop of ruderies about bodily functions and you have On I Bang, which charts the comic's diagnosis with – and, thankfully, recovery from – a benign brain tumour.Jupp starts at the beginning: August 2021 and the Jupp family are on holiday. As with much of the comic's material, it anecdotally describes the everydayness of most people's lives, and, more specifically, the daily frustrations of being Miles Read more ...

In the middle of another age of austerity, a climate crisis and seemingly intractable international conflicts, it's cheering that a comic should tour with a show called Bafflingly Optimistic. Even more so when that comedian is Andy Parsons, whose sardonic humour – much of it about the British and Britishness – could never be described as rose-tinted.Parsons has carved out a solid career with his intelligent takes on the British political landscape and his thoughtful ruminations on where we are in the world. He knows his stuff, as evidenced here by a tour de force treatise on economics; if Read more ...

I first saw Bill Bailey at least 30 years ago in the cabaret tent at Glastonbury Festival, the audience lying on hessian matting, a fug of hash smoke in the air. He seemed one of us, a bug-eyed, Tolkien-prog hippy with a stoned sense of humour and charged musical chops. A lot of water under the bridge since then. Animal rights champion. Won Strictly Come Dancing. Mellow middle-of-the road chat-show regular. Cuddly national treasure status approaching. Even recently told The Guardian he’d forgiven Bryan Adams his multiple musical atrocities. No way, dude. No way. And yet, and yet… at 59-years- Read more ...

It's probably fair to say that Paul Foot is an acquired taste for some; his absurdist, poetic comedy isn't for everyone but he has built a strong and loyal following without the help of television exposure. And now in Dissolve, which debuted at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe, his comedy takes a more personal turn as he describes the mental health problems that have dogged him for decades.Foot draws the audience in gently with some trademark whimsy though, as he describes the “disturbances” in his head and also tells a convoluted tale about a bird. Yes, it's a contrived metaphor he tells us, but he Read more ...

Jessica Fostekew is ageing fast. Actually, she's not, but having recently reached 40 she says that's how she feels. And for an hour she describes to us the signs, from despising litterbugs to gaining a political viewpoint that may not chime with her peers.Even if the comic is concerned about her “accelerated ageing”, Mettle is not a downbeat show, far from it; Fostekew has far too much natural ebullience for that, and she gives a very physical performance as she acts out some passages, not least when she expertly deconstructs one of Lizzo's songs.Mettle follows in the vein of previous shows Read more ...

You don’t expect a couple of septuagenarian contraltos, aided by a spring chicken of a soprano in her fifties, to sing naughty ditties about jacksies and titties. Then again, if you are a Fascinating Aida fan, you do. Thousands of fans turned up for the FAs’ three-night run at the Palladium, greeting the trio with a roar as if they were rock stars entering an arena. They’re much more interesting than most rock musicians: a fearlessly outspoken, deliciously outrageous act whose political stance has become more passionately entrenched over the 40-plus years since FA was formed by Dillie Read more ...

As the man himself says, he was awarded an MBE last year, despite the dirt, for services to comedy – though which services weren’t specified… On paper that isn’t a remotely risqué remark, but Skinner can milk innuendo from anything that comes out of his mouth.His new West End set, road-tested in Edinburgh last year, raises an interesting question, though: has his act got less dirty over the years, or audiences more so? My memory of past Skinner sets is of a man revelling in stories that would have made the mainstream entertainment censors twitch before he arrived in the early 1990s, but Read more ...

Tatty Macleod, whose debut show is about the differences between the French and the English, has a confession to make: she's not French. She not even half English/half French, despite having lived her life between the two countries. But she's definitely bilingual and, as befits having a foot in both cultures, is well placed to compare her dual countrymen and women.It's a very good premise for Fugue, even if for most of the show Macleod – who first came to prominance on social media – doesn't detain us with anything much deeper than “the English are like this, the French are like that”.But she Read more ...

From Covid-delayed dates (yes, that's still a thing) to emotional comebacks and assured debuts, 2023 had much to offer.Of the big TV names rediscovering the joys of live comedy were Dick and Dom on their Covid-delayed 20th-anniversary tour and shiny-floor-show specialist Michael McIntyre, but the most anticipated return was by Peter Kay, who had cancelled his mega tour in 2017 for undisclosed family reasons. The first half of his show was entertaining enough but not memorable, but he pulled it out of the bag with a second-half coup de theatre. He's touring throughout 2024 and 2025, so Read more ...

As the panto season is in full swing, theatregoers will be expecting to hear some smut. For those who don't like the traditional artform but still like a bit of filth – with songs – then Reuben Kaye's The Butch Is Back will do nicely.It's a storytelling show in a cabaret format as the fabulously dressed Australian comic and singer performs with his six-piece band. He has an extraordinary voice and the songs (arranged by his musical director Shanon D Whitelock, who is on keyboards) – bombastic, full-throated affairs and camp-as-you-like rockers – recount his childhood or act as a soundtrack as Read more ...

The O2 has to be the K2 of comedy peaks: a vast ovoid drum of a place where those right at the back have to be content with watching magnified images on screens. And for a standup, there are no electric instruments to drown out the echoing acoustics.So it’s a measure of Trevor Noah’s charisma and charm that he cut right through these handicaps. It’s not the worst place he has played since his return to live comedy from hosting The Daily Show on US TV. That would be the giant tent his promoters booked for him in India, which had to have a score of air conditioning units on the go: there was no Read more ...