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.

From Covid-delayed dates (yes, that's still a thing) to emotional comebacks and assured debuts, 2023 had much to offer.

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.

It takes some chutzpah to do a substantial section of a comedy show in 2023 (and touring until mid-2024) that deals with your pandemic woes, but that’s Michael McIntyre for you – he has never been short of confidence.

To be fair, it’s the closing section of a solidly constructed performance of his everyman comedy, but runs the risk of being stale for those seeing him at the end of the tour.

Recovery from alcoholism is now standard fare in stand-up comedy; so too are  living with ADHD, OCD, depression and anxiety. It's the last of those conditions, combined with becoming sober, that 2017 Edinburgh Comedy Award winner John Robins has fashioned into a striking and affecting show, Howl, which I saw at the Gulbenkian Theatre in Canterbury.

In 2017, Bolton comic Peter Kay had to cancel his planned tour because of “family circumstances”. But then, when he announced last year that he was back in the saddle, the tickets for Better Late Than Never sold like the proverbial. Well into what has mushroomed into a mega tour continuing until 2025, I caught him at the O2 Arena.

The show begins before the audience troops into the theatre; the walls of the staircase leading to it are plastered with images of Kate Berlant, its writer and performer; we file past her (sitting by the doorway with a sign saying “Ignore me”) and a long word-salad statement by her; and then, before she appears, we watch a film on the onstage screen in which – in arty black-and-white, quoting Stanislavsky and Oscar Wilde – Berlant preens and pouts and Looks Very Serious.

Ahir Shah, Monkey Barrel

Ahir Shah is a fast talker, but then in Ends – which deservedly won best show in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards – he has a lot to say. It's a show about multiculturalism, family, identity, fitting in, and encompasses modern history on two continents, so he has a lot to pack in.

Janine Harouni, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★

Olga Koch Monkey Barrel ★★★★

Olga Koch's opening segment deals with bisexuality and her first threesome in some decidedly evocative language. That's what turning 30 does for you, she suggests – allowing her to engage in a more adventurous attitude to life and a more sex-positive one to relationships.