The Definitive Guide to Comedy
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ What could’ve remained a simple sight gag has evolved into a powerful, personal and punchy clown musical. What a pleasant surprise! What genius choices Maya Ricote has made, turning this caricature into a distortion of her true self (Ay Am! after all, is but a Bizarro version of Maya!), …
⭐⭐⭐ Sometimes a basement show feels like a basement show. You need to be sitting up front to get up close and personal with character-based performance art like this. Immersion is critical to your enjoyment. Especially since so much of the hour relies about audience interaction. From the middle or …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Best Newcomer nominee in 2024, Li Jin Hao just released a version of that show (“Swimming in a Submarine”) on YouTube earlier this summer. During this hour, he jokes about how Show Business only rewards pitches that are somehow both familiar and yet brand new. If you watched …
⭐⭐⭐½ This is one of those 3½-star shows that’ll earn more stars as Torres gets deeper into Fringe. It’s not not a dead parents show. But Torres, a stand-up whose TV credits include performances on both Conan and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, does take us back to his …
⭐⭐⭐½ Lads of a certain age know who Keeley Hazell is. As her show’s title (based on her 2025 memoir) lays out, Keeley was a topless Page 3 model for The Sun tabloid in the late 2000s, and a cover model several times over for the lad mag FHM. What …
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Egyptian-born, Cambridge-raised, Omar Badawy is a writer for SNL UK who’s full of LOLs such as this zinger: “Bringing an Arab Christian to your parents is like bringing Prince Andrew a 12-year-old … whiskey.” And yet his parents sent him to a Christian school. Why? When it comes to …
⭐⭐⭐½ As half of the sketch-duo Lazy Susan, Freya Parker received a Best Newcomer nomination at the Fringe in 2014. Since then, Parker has popped up all over BBC Radio, as well as onscreen in big movies such as Jurassic World: Dominion and Wonka. For her sophomore solo show at …
⭐⭐⭐½ A three-ring circus confined to one ring and no rules makes Stamptown one of those unique spectacles that’ll either make you shake with laughter or merely shake your head. Sometimes both in the course of the same set piece. Zach Zucker still presides over the madcap mayhem as the …
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ “Beautiful things don’t come out of my mouth. They come into it.” That’s how Guy Branum cheekily explains why he doesn’t sing, despite being a gay man over 40. And yet, if he’s not going to sing for his supper, he doesn’t yet have a properly platformed stand-up comedy special, …
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ Do you suffer from low self-esteem? “Not after tonight! We’re fixing it!” Frankie McNair is a star! Or she’s living proof of the success of following her own mindset, living life as if she has a huge ass. The Australian comedian has several live shows and TV credits to …
