Joe Rogan, Netflix Special review - US podcaster leaves the controversy - and the jokes - at home

★★ JOE ROGAN, NETFLIX SPECIAL US Nothing edgy about this hour

Nothing edgy about this hour

Before Joe Rogan gained fame for his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, he has been, variously, a comic,  presenter of goofball television shows and an analyst of UTC bouts. Now with  his Netflix Special he’s returning to his first occupation, as a stand-up. It was recorded at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio, Texas.

Zoë Coombs Marr, Soho Theatre review - stock checks and spreadsheets

★★★ ZOE COOMBS MARR, SOHO THEATRE Stock checks and spreadsheets

Australian comic's autobiographical show

You have to admire the ambition of a show called Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life, the latest from Zoë Coombs Marr, which she performed at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe and is now in its Soho Theatre residency. It’s an hour that takes on some big themes – sexuality, mental health, the state of comedy – while digging down into her life as she reaches 40, and has done something of a stock check.

Adam Sandler, Netflix Special - songs, silliness and deconstructing stand-up

★★★ ADAM SANDLER, NETFLIX SPECIAL Songs, silliness and deconstructing stand-up

The comic and director Josh Sadie have fun with the form

You may spend some of Adam Sandler's new Netflix Special wondering what's going on. But if you're a fan of his alma mater, Saturday Night Live, you'll guess that the clearly staged first few minutes act as a homage to its “cold opening”, as we see Sandler arrive at the venue, walk through the backstage mayhem of greeters, fans and hangers-on, and then take the stage.

Blu-ray: Laurel and Hardy - The Silent Years

★★★★★ BLU-RAY: LAUREL AND HARDY - THE SILENT YEARS A collection of silent shorts

Always watchable, occasionally hysterical collection of silent shorts

Though among the most successful film comedians of the early sound era, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s cinematic partnership had actually started in the early 1920s. It’s easy to overlook their silent short films, 15 of which are collected here.

Edinburgh Fringe 2024 review: Joe Kent-Walters

Spoof of old-school entertainment

Joe Kent-Walters has been given the DLT Entertainment Best Newcomer Award in the 2024 Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and deservedly so, for Joe Kent-Walters is Frankie Monroe: LIVE!!!! The show is a blast.

It's set in a working men's club in Rotherham which has seen better days, as has its MC, Frankie Monroe. (This device is much helped by the show being performed late at night in an overheated, low-ceilinged basement room at Monkey Barrel.)

Edinburgh Fringe 2024: Edinburgh Comedy Awards winners

EDINBURGH COMEDY AWARDS Amy Gledhill won the Best Comedy Show

Amy Gledhill wins main award

Amy Gledhill won the Don and Eleanor Taffner Best Comedy Show, the main award at the 2024 Edinburgh Comedy Awards for Make Me Look Fit on the Poster. The show has variously been described as “bawdy comedy delivered with a blush”, “a funny woman rightly confident of her comedy talents” and “a brilliant physical comedian”.

Accepting her award, Gledhill said: “This is insane. I saw the other people on this list and I thought, 'I don't have to write a script!'”

Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Grace Mulvey / John Tothill

EDINBURGH FRINGE 2024 ★★★ Grace Mulvey / ★★★ John Tothill 

Candid stories, and teasing the comedy gods

Grace Mulvey, Assembly Roxy 

Grace Mulvey has been single for five years, she tells us at the top of the show, a matter of some disappointment to her mother back in Dublin. Even moving to London two years ago didn't change her dating status, despite the best efforts of her flatmates. But then, they're lesbians and she's straight, so maybe their advice isn't quite hitting the spot.

Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Stevie Martin / Colin Hoult

EDINBURGH FRINGE 2024 ★★★ Stevie Martin / ★★★★ Colin Hoult

Deconstructing comedy, and reflections on fatherhood and family

Stevie Martin, Monkey Barrel  

Stevie Martin is part of the generation of comics for whom the internet is a natural home; she has racked up tens of millions of views for her work online, where she had to strut her stuff when the world went into lockdown.