John Kearns' comedy is what you might call niche; absurdist, surrealist, poetic – they all apply, underlined by his onstage uniform, or “mask”, of tonsure wig and oversize false teeth.
Phil Wang has an interesting background: he has a Chinese-Malaysian father and a white English mother, was born in the UK, and spent his childhood in Malaysia before returning to the UK at 16. His comedy has always mined this rich seam, and now in his latest touring show, Wang in There, Baby!, he mines it a bit more with his opening gags.
Hannah Gadsby had a memorable lockdown; it was when the Tasmanian comic got together with producer Jenney Shamash. And it's their courtship that forms the basis for Something Special, the wonderful new show by Gadsby which is now a Netflix special, recorded at the Sydney Opera House.
Emmanuel Sonubi burst on the scene at last year's Edinburgh Fringe, where he was nominated in the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and has since appeared on the BBC's Live at the Apollo and supported Jason Manford on tour. It's easy to see why he's broken through; the north Londoner is an instantly engaging presence on stage, with a cheeky conversational style that draws the audience in.
Bridget Christie is hot. Not in that way, you mucky pups. She’s hot because she’s 51 and menopausal, she tells us – and she’s on a mission to explain why, rather than marking a negative moment in her life, it’s the start of a new age, and a good one at that.
She makes a persuasive case, setting out the downsides first. The hot flushes, obviously. The brain fog, the irregular periods – with the occasional “passata tsunami” – but mostly how it heralds invisibility for middle-aged women.
Ricky Gervais tells us at the top of the show that there was a backlash to his 2022 Netflix special SuperNature. So big, he says, that it’s become the most watched comedy special of the year. “So I’ve learnt my lesson,” he says with a side-eye to the audience.
Catherine Cohen made quite an impact at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe, where she won best newcomer in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for The Twist? She's Gorgeous. Global events have delayed her follow-up and a UK debut tour, but here it is, and Come For Me was worth waiting for.
A lot has been happening in Lucy Porter’s life since she last toured. The pandemic we all know about, so she doesn’t detain us to recount her lockdown woes; they get merely tangential mentions in Wake Up Call as she talks about more recent events which included a health scare leading to something of a midlife crisis.
At one point in this brilliantly constructed and performed set, Alex Edelman ponders on the catchment area for his comedy and figures it might be the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Nah: this is comedy that can talk to anybody with a brain.