More online stand-up gigs air tonight

Today's comedy on-demand picks

Here's our pick of the best new comedy on demand. During the coronavirus lockdown Chortle will be bringing you a round-up of what's new to watch at home, updated every day at around 3pm. From subscription services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, iPlayer and NextUp, to podcasts and shows that comedians have released themselves, this is your essential guide to getting a daily injection of laughs. After all, it'll help boost your immune system and stave off isolation...

Comedy At The Covid Arms

Kiri Pritchard-McLean is behind this virtual comedy show, which launched last week to an audience of 4,000, raising £13,000 for the Trussell Trust food bank operators.

Such was the success that the show will now run weekly, with the money split between the performers and the charity.

From 7pm tonight, Pritchard-McLean will be joined by Grace Petrie, Nish Kumar, Nina Gilligan and Tom Allen.

She said: 'I’ve just spent the last few weeks feeling overwhelmed and saddened by everything that’s happening. [With Comedy at the Covid Arms] I feel like I can help in a tiny way and it also gives me a great excuse to have a shower and don some sequins once a week. And because it is on Zoom I get to chat to people in the audience like a normal gig!'

It costs £10 for those 'front-row' seats; for anyone else it's a donation of £2 or more. Buy your virtual ticket here.

{UPDATE: For next week's gig click here]

Funhouse Comedy Club

The chain of clubs in the Midlands (and beyond) is also hosting a charity special, featuring Nathan Caton, comedy magician Sean Heydon, The Dark Room's John Robertson, Lindsey Santoro plus compere Spiky Mike.

Streaming will be free from 8pm, with donations be split 50/50 between the comic and the Macmillan cancer support charity. Watch here:

Laugh Aid

An impressive array of comics including Jim Gaffigan, Adam Sandler, Patton Oswalt, Bill Burr and Marc Maron are taking part in a high-profile online fundraiser for Comedy Gives Back to help jobbing stand-ups who have been hit by the loss of work due to the coronavirus.

The full line-up also includes Whitney Cummings, Ken Jeong, Dave Attell, Joel Kim Booster, Dane Cook, Anthony Jeselnik, Jessica Kirson, Bert Kreischer, Howie Mandel,Big Jay Oakerson, Tom Papa, Ray Romano, Jeff Ross, Iliza Shlesinger, The Sklar Brothers, Bob Saget, Amanda Seales, Dan Soder, David Spade, Taylor Tomlinson and Gina Yashere

It will be streamed on Twitch from midnight UK time.

Adam Buxton podcast

The podcaster extraordinary has sprung back into action after a three-month hiatus, releasing two episodes this week. One with Dr Xand van Tulleken, all about coronavirus, and one with Daisy Haggard, star of Sky One's new parenting sitcom Breeders. And if you haven't heard them before a) what have you been doing with your podcast subscriptions! And b) they are all available here.

School's Out Comedy Club

Comedy clubs for children are a well-established concept now. And during the lockdown, dad and stand-up comic Philip Simon has put the concept online, releasing short videos full of jokes – most of which have been sent in by the children. Though grown-ups can also get involved, so long as their jokes are child-friendly.

He's three episodes in. Subscribe here, or the latest is here:

Monkey Barrel Comedy

The Edinburgh comedy venue is plundering its archives to offer the recording of one of its stand-up shows at 8pm every Friday night, with the recording available for for the rest of the weekend.

Tonight's first show will feature Micky Overman, Eddy Cassidy and Ignacio Lopez with regular host Rick Molland, and the club will be soliciting donations.

Each week's episode will be available here.

Richard Herring's We're All Going To Die

The comic's 2013 Edinburgh show is the latest stand-up special to be released by indie label Go Faster Stripe for whatever price you want to pay – with all proceeds going to food bank charity The Trussell Trust.

The show is a wide-ranging tour around issues of mortality, including the religious, artistic and societal responses to our inevitable demise – and includes Herring pondering how this very website might report his passing...

It will be available from 4pm. And if you visit the Go Faster Stripe website before then, you'll be able to get last week's offered special, Rachel Fairburn's Her Majesty, under the same sweet deal.

So far the Cardiff-based label has raised more than £15,000 for the charity by offering downloads this way.

Just Puddings

Another day, another bit of content from James Acaster and Ed Gamble. Last night, they broadcast a live edition of they Off Menu podcast with guest Richard Herring as part of the Stay At Home festival – see below. And today they revive their Just Puddings web series for a one-off episode.

The premise is that because he's a Type 1 diabetic, Gamble cannot easily sample sweet desserts, so gets his pal to try them out for him. They previously went to several restaurants for the experiment. But now, in lockdown, Gamble has ordered a very special cake to be delivered to Acaster's door... and he awaits the verdict: Richard Herring's We're All Going To Die.

Jon Long

The musical comedian has this week released a four-track EP, two from his back catalogue and two newly written, inspired by the pandemic.

The tracks are Over-Thinker, Fuck Jogging, 7 Days and Flexitarian – are available for free on Bandcamp, with donations invited.

Off Menu

James Acaster and Ed Gamble are to live-stream a special lockdown episode of their hit podcast Off Menu tonight.

Their guest will be Richard Herring, but rather than pre-record the interview for later release, it will go out live via the Cosmic Shambles Network’s Stay at Home from 8.30pm.

As usual, they will be asking him to compile his ideal menu.

And do remember to tip your comedians. Link

Community

Dan Harmon’s cult community college-set comedy, arrives on Netflix today.

Starring Donald Glover, Ken Jeong, Alison Brie, Joel McHale, Chevy Chase – and even John Oliver for a while – the show ran from 2009 to 2014 on NBC in the States before an ill-fated sixth season on Yahoo! Screen.

All six seasons of the quirky ensemble sitcom are available on the streaming service.

Casual Violence: House of Nostril

The sketch troupe have released a recording of their 2014 show, taped at London's Soho Theatre (sadly only with a single camera, on the side of the stage) for free.

It tells the tale of Roger Nostril - villainous tyrant, bloodthirsty maniac and petulant nuisance - who has returned home after a 20- year war with Amnesty International, only to find himself caught in a fresh battle for dominance with his wayward, weak-willed son Charlie.

This was the fourth Edinburgh show from the group – James Hamilton, Luke Booys, Greg Cranness, Dave Newman and Alex Whyman – and it earned a slew of four-star reviews.

The Little Tiny Quiz Of The Lockdown

Jimmy Carr – host of the Big Fat Quiz Of The Year as well as pretty much everything else – is beating the lockdown boredom by posing a series of pub-quiz style trivial questions each night. The questions come at 6pm with the answers following two hours later.

He started last night with these brainteasers below – and click here for the answers. More will come later today.

XS Malarkey

Manchester's long-running comedy club is offering a livestream every Tuesday night, when it would much rather be running its usual live gig.

Mark Watson and Sara Barron are among the comics joining host and promoter Toby Hadoke on Twitch, and as per usual viewers will be asked to make a donation to help comedians maintain an income amid the industry shutdown.

Last week's show, which featured James Acaster, attracted 2,000 viewers and Hadoke said: 'When I started XS Malarkey, I had a room and a microphone, that was it. 23 years later, with the UK on lockdown ... I didn't even have a room! What I did have though, was a brilliant, inventive team determined that the show must go on. And it did!

'I'm flabbergasted by the quality of the acts who agreed to do it and delighted at the number of people who viewed it. In this time of catch-up and Netflix, it was a reminder that a live communal experience that brings people together and connects them is special. It reminds us in these difficult times that laughter is catching too.'

There are pre-show shenanigans from 7pm, and it all kicks off properly at 8pm.

WhatsApp'ening

Here's a fun panel show with isolated comedians communicated by video messaging – although the content is edited to look and feel like a real Whats App group chat, which gives it a bit more dynamic than most home broadcasts.

Hosted by Mark O'Sullivan from Channel 4's Lee and Dean, the show asks its comedian panelists to separate fact from fiction. Episode one's guests are Jacob Hawly, Lauren Pattison, Stevie Martin and Nic Sampson (Funny Girls).

Watch episode one below:

You'll Do

The BBC Sounds new podcast about relationships with real-life couple Catherine Bohart and Sarah Keyworth, both comedians. This week fellow stand-up Joel Dommett and model Hannah Cooper talk about their marriage, taking out the bins and sliding into the DMs. Listen here

Sarah Millican: How To Be Champion

The comedian is reading extracts from her 2017 memoirs/self-help book How To Be Champion every day at 3pm, starting today. 'Like a Jackanory' as she puts it.

Watch on her YouTube channel.

The book is also currently available on Kindle for just 99p here.

Daniel Muggleton: Three Stripes

The Australian comic – whose comedy is based around the notion that he's 'just woke enough to know that he's an asshole' – has released the show he recorded at the Bill Murray pub in London after last year's Edinburgh Fringe.

In the intro to Three Stripes, he explains: 'Comedy specials are all the same: filmed in a theatre, every joke lands as the camera cuts to someone laughing. But stand-up comedy isn't like that. It's live, in a club, and doesn't always work... I wanted to show you what that looks like.'

The special is free on YouTube, though like everyone he is welcoming donations

Hancock's Half Hour

The professional ensemble at Apollo Theatre Company have been touring with their recreation of Hancock's Half Hour, using Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's original radio scripts.

Now they've put a recording of the show, taped last year at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, online for free.

The show stars James Hurn as Tony Hancock; Ben Craze as Sid James; Tom Capper as Bill Kerr; Laura Crowhurst as Hattie Jacques; Colin Elmer as Kenneth Williams and Clive Greenwood as the BBC Announcer.

Time Gentlemen Please

Pub Landlord Al Murray is releasing a new episode of the 2000 Sky One sitcom he wrote with Richard Herring ever week on YouTube.

Set in his old-fashioned boozer, the comedy, which ran for 37 episodes over two series, co-stars Phil Daniels as perpetually banned barfly Terry, Jason Freeman as slow-witted barman Steve. Rebecca Front as brewery rep Vicky Jackson and Julia Sawalha as barmaid Janet (replaced by Emma Pierson for series two).

The latest is below, and here are the previous ones, along with some of Murray's stand-up routines.

Kunt's Corona Club

The foul-mouthed alternative comic is hosting a nightly show featuring some of his crude musical numbers (in both senses of the word) and between-song banter. Viz-style humour in your browser. Here is the feed, while last night's show - his third - is below.

Live Streamed Comedy Show

Stand-up Jon Pearson is hosting a virtual comedy club from 7.30pm tonight featuring Comedians' Comedian podcaster Stuart Goldsmith alongside the circuit's Thomas Green and Jenny Collier. Watch for free, but donations are welcome