Tim Harding's comedy diary

Reviewer Tim Harding gives a rundown of the comedy he's been watching in London - in the last two weeks.

For the first few years of the relatively brief window that I’ve been following comedy, Henry Paker remained tantalisingly out of reach. I would occasionally catch a glimpse of his outline as a great figure in the comedic mist – Josh Widdicombe picking him for his perfect gig line-up; Elis James calling him the funniest man alive in an anecdote on Radio X; Romesh calling him a genius etc – but the brief clips available on YouTube bore not too much evidence of that stature. 

That was until he started his podcast Three Bean Salad with Mike Wozniak and Benjamin Partridge in 2021, and the chat format finally provided an outlet for his discursive, improvisatory, brilliantly silly style. His particular superpower is that he can essentially riff incredible stand-up routines on any topic at point-blank range. In the pre-written format, there was a sense that this competitive advantage disappeared.

But now, hopefully riding a wave of interest from the podcast, he’s back working up his first new show since 2018, in a brand new format that marries comedy with his second career as a successful illustrator of children’s books. 

Seated at a desk for this show at the Bill Murray, a projector shows a feed of his sketchbook as he draws live in front of us. It’s all done in the spirit of experimentation, as he puts it, but he’s found a number of clever ways to incorporate the drawing element. There are pre-deduced visual gags that take shape quickly before your eyes, and improvised scenarios based on information from the audience. At one point he even sketches out a song in real time.

I’m happy to report he may have found the perfect format for his skills. It’s genuinely remarkable how he can add such funny details to a drawing just from the addition of a single line that might change a facial expression or add context in some way – single lines of felt tip which have the impact of one-liners. And the entire time, of course, he’s chatting ten to the dozen about whatever’s going through his head, a middle-aged man with the scattiness and effervescent silliness of a manic pixie dream girl.

 I almost hope the format doesn’t solidify too much more, because it feels crucial that he keeps it shambolic and responsive, but for now this work in progress was an utter delight.

It was kind of a jump-scare to find out that Ilana Glazer, former Broad City star and Chronic Gamer Girl of our dreams is now a married parent of a two-year-old. Where did the last ten years go? 

Glazer has receded from the public eye a little since the end of Broad City, but released their first stand-up special in 2020 and has now returned with a sequel, Human Magic, a low-key set covering sex, parenthood, feminism and smoking weed now streaming on Disney+. Although not really known as a stand-up, they have bona fides in the Chicago scene with the UCB, and hold the stage with precisely as much charisma as any other glam American act. 

Actually that’s a little unfair, as Glazer does have an obvious star quality and specific persona that they can lean into, replete with a thousand little mannerisms and vocal tics that will be familiar from their Broad City character, and make them an undeniably compelling stage presence.

 If there’s some thematic interest here, it’s mostly about reconciling aspects of the millennial personality – how do you practise good parenting when you want to smoke weed all day? Why are you horny for men when men are trash? It’s a very solid set that just falls short of classic era Broad City scenario-based daffiness, and melts away like wet sugar when you close the browser window.

As regards the passing of time, I thought I was on safer ground when Katherine Ryan opened her London Palladium show with a video of her daughter Violet. 

Violet has played a major background role in her mother’s comedy for many years, so it was reassuring that she still looked about seven in the video. Come to find out it’s an old video, and Violet is now a coolly contemptuous 16-year-old, no doubt at the centre of some very scary teen cliques at some private school in the home counties. Time makes fools of us all.

Ryan Sr remains ageless and in full control of her powers, her wit unblunted after many years sitting atop the chain of command of UK comedy. I know everyone says this but she really is a force to be reckoned with: so quick, acidic and uncompromising that you easily overlook the graciousness with which she takes part in the entertainment industry.

I went to see her labouring under the hypothesis that she was becoming more of a small c conservative after moving to a big house in the country with her husband and three Aryan children, but she’s still kind, politically astute and incredibly funny.

The second half of this show, Battleaxe, is an opportunity to showcase all that, as it’s formatted around tackling dilemmas texted in by the audience. When a comedian opens up their show to questions from the audience, my typical assumption is that they’ve run out of ideas, and it must be said this show is noticeably brief already, but the agony aunt pose actually works wonders here. 

Instead of (devastatingly) sniping celebrities and her own family members, it gives Ryan an opportunity to empathise and emote, and shows off her formidable improvisation skills, reminding us that she’s just as comfortable off-the-cuff as when delivering her perfect pre-written barbs. 

 It feels important that we don’t start taking her for granted just because she’s such a commercial entity these days. She deserves her place at the top.

Published: 14 Apr 2025