Tim Harding's comedy diary

Reviewer Tim Harding gives a rundown of the best comedy he's been watching in London this past fortnight... 

As a devotee of the live experience who’s trying to spend less time on his phone, I often feel like I’m getting fed a slightly different algorithmic diet to the majority of the country’s comedy consumers, and am continually surprised as to which live acts are succeeding in building a heavy following on TikTok. 

That said, if Tom Lawrinson and Sam O’Leary aren’t the two best-known sketch comedians in the UK right now, we may as well shut down social media for good. I’m continually amazed at how every video they release so precisely tickles my funny bone, and the wealth of laughs they can pack into videos that often run shorter than 90 seconds.

So with Tom Lawrinson coming down from Manchester to London to do a couple of nights of his show Hubba Hubba at the Soho Theatre, I was very excited to catch him in person for the first time, and now it’s all over, I’m even more excited. 

Firstly, his stage persona really makes me laugh: very confident but extremely sketchy, he gives off airs of a strange man alone in a pub, eyeing you up as a new friend and able to do you a great deal on a mysterious bag of unmarked meats. His material about creeping around on rooftops, sticking his hand down chimneys and luring Paddington Bear into his car for sex follows the queasily shifting logic of his collaborations with O’Leary and showcases an upsetting, pantherish charisma as well as a mastery of weird faces. He’s just shot up the list of my most anticipated Fringe shows for this year. 

At the Bill Murray, Joz Norris was putting on a work in progress of a show that’s not due for completion until 2025, but already feels somewhere close to fully-formed. 

Although he’s fundamentally a very silly man, he’s definitely on the more cerebral end of absurdism, and in this show continues quite consciously to explore some pet themes of creativity and the abnegation of self in service of art.

Like Blink, his excellent last show from 2022, this one –  currently titled You Wait, Time Passes – is structured around an elongated build-up to a ridiculous stunt, in this case the unveiling of his mysterious ‘life’s work’, a pursuit that has alienated him from his family and driven him half mad. I hope it’s not spoiling anything to say that the climactic reveal spectacularly lives up to Norris’s self-generated hype. It’s exciting to think he’s still got over a year left to polish it.

Trying to get out of London’s daily grind for a bit, I nevertheless ended up at another comedy night, the well-liked Jericho Comedy in Oxford, run by Alex Farrow. This is a fascinating evening, not necessarily because of the way it’s run (although it’s run very well) but because of the clientele, which sometimes seems to consist entirely of high-level science academics. Every time I’ve been, Farrow’s compering has immediately unearthed punters working on the bleeding edge of AI, sustainability, quantum physics and nuclear fusion. Apparently they used to get more humanities scholars, but the scientific community have been getting into stand-up in a big way recently. Farrow is a very talented compere who’s adapted well to his unique crowd, and always gets some good acts on. 

After some slightly old-fashioned sets from James Ellis and Barry Ferns that didn’t light up the room, the second half had Lou Taylor and Jamie D’Souza, both new to me and both very strong. 

Taylor’s smart and bawdy stories of early sexcapades (horrible word but there you have it) were huge fun. I’ve never seen someone aggressively asking an audience if they’ve ever been fingered and still make it so charming. D’Souza projects a similar millennial everyperson appeal, and has a nervy, staccato style of delivery that sounds stressful when I describe it but was for some reason immensely listenable and almost soothing – I’m looking forward to catching both of them for longer sets.

With so many flourishing scenes outside London, I would dearly love to visit more comedy nights around the UK, but for the minute I’m restricted to cities with a free place to sleep and a cheap coach service. Suggestions are welcome.

Published: 31 May 2024