It has been 16 years since Alexei Sayle last performed as a stand-up, save the very occasional charity gig, so there was a proper sense of occasion at the Soho Theatre when he came on stage. The old lefty, brought up in a Stalinist household in Liverpool, was alternative comedy's biggest name back in the 1980s and the scourge of the Thatcher government, so how would his sneering, disdainful political material fare now?Very, very well, I'm glad to say, although in Alexei Sayle Presents (a month-long Tuesday residency) he's not doing a full set, rather MC-ing to introduce a selection of younger Read more ...

Bubbles are emanating from Simon Munnery's head. They're streaming out of a huge, black stovepipe hat which he has cobbled together from cardboard and sticky tape. He has also slung an electric guitar over his shoulder as he sidles up to the mic to begin Hats Off to the 101ers, and Other Material. What does he look like? A cranky mishmash. Kids' entertainer or mad Victorian undertaker? Fortysomething geek or indie rocker?His gigs defy narrow categorisation too, being experimentally varied and full of non-sequiturs. One minute he'll be launching into a satirical droning ballad – "la la la, Read more ...

In a year when there was precious little to laugh at economy-wise, some funny men and women were doing their best to keep our chuckle muscles in working order - although, strangely, you may think, few stand-ups were doing overtly political comedy - and the Edinburgh Fringe, normally a reliable source of laughs, was having a quiet year as lots of established comics stayed away and the next generation mostly hadn't yet found their voice.Rising above the so-so were Stewart Lee, a comic at the top of his game, Glenn Wool, Sarah Millican and Dave Gorman. And of the younger comics, Totally Tom, a Read more ...

What makes something funny? Why do comics stand on stage in front of strangers and try to make them laugh? Is any subject beyond a joke? What is the purpose of Alan Yentob? Those questions – OK, only the first three – were raised by Imagine's presenter in this, the first of a two-parter about the art of stand-up.The documentary about comedy on this side of the pond (tonight's second part is about American stand-up) was stuffed full of comic talent – so full, indeed, that we saw unusually little of the presenter, although he still managed to shoehorn himself unnecessarily often into the Read more ...

Every year at the Edinburgh Fringe there's a sleeper hit, or a show that promises little on paper but delivers big time in the flesh, and this year's unexpected success was Set List, a kind of improv for stand-ups, which has also been called “comedy without a net” or “like flying without wings”. Only the bravest comics attempted it, and now the show's producers are putting it on in London for a few performances so more people can see whether those descriptions are accurate, or simply prove that comics like a bit of hyperbole. It is, like many a good thing in the entertainment industry, an Read more ...

Stewart Lee is in Eeyorish mood. The BBC have not yet got round to recommissioning his acclaimed television show. They have been more bountiful, he grumbles, with Russell Howard, and you can hear the older man’s withering scorn for the younger, blonder cherub contractually obliged never to step away from the cameras. On the plus side, he is in residence at this cosy but capacious theatre until February, a booking that only the promise of television audiences can gift. New recruits have therefore been persuaded in, but they do not receive a friendly greeting: the understanding is that they Read more ...

There's nothing like winning a gong to rock your world. Last August, Russell Kane won the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Award for his Fringe show and his level of celebrity skyrocketed. But within a few months his marriage broke down - and the resulting introspection provided the starting point for a very fine show, Manscaping, which I saw at the Palace Theatre in Westcliff-on-Sea.Kane was very much on home territory – he could walk to the theatre, he told us – and much of the opening 10 minutes was spent guying the locals. Ockendon and Westcliff in particular got it in the neck, for very Read more ...

Following a rejuvenating foray back to his one-man-with-a-mike stand-up roots throughout 2009 and 2010, this summer Dave Gorman returned to the Edinburgh Fringe after an eight-year absence to launch Dave Gorman's PowerPoint Presentation. The man who invented the genre of data-heavy, technology-based interactive comedy with Are You Dave Gorman? and Googlewhack Adventure once again found a haven in the Apple Mac and comedy pie chart; could we have been forgiven for thinking that he was playing it just a little safe?Now Gorman is taking the show on tour – and gosh it’s good. Not Read more ...

Angie Le Mar, who recently celebrated 25 years in showbusiness, has certainly packed a lot into her life; she's a comic, writer, director, radio presenter and producer, and now has written and performs In My Shoes, her new one-woman show (directed by Femi Elufowoju), a collection of six interwoven characters. It follows her first stage outing, as the writer of Do You Know Where Your Daughter Is?, a thought-provoking account of the sexual and domestic abuse of young women.Her first character is the loud and brash American soul singer Falushilah Falashilay, whom we see in a shoe shop buying Read more ...

It has been four years since Alan Carr toured with a live show, and he's been much missed from the circuit. From his first appearances at the Edinburgh Fringe when he entertained audiences with tales of his past life as a call-centre worker and being the woefully non-sporty son of a football-manager father, he was destined for stardom.Television appearances – game shows, quizzes and chat shows – followed, and despite his huge recent success I think producers have not yet managed to find the right vehicle for the ever-smiling and hugely engaging Carr. He follows in a line of a certain Read more ...

Not everyone likes Lee Evans and his bespoke brand of simian gurning and jerky rubberised motion. But he is very much to the taste of a majority of the comedy-going classes. Few other stand-ups – you can count them on one hand – could spend a season touring the UK’s soulless edge-of-town arenas and not have to worry about performing to empty banks of raised seating. Evans tore into two sets of an hour each last night at Wembley Arena without, apparently, a thought of conserving any energy for the five nights still to come and the long list of bookings beyond. Such is his hypnotic hold that Read more ...

Stephen Merchant has played the sleeping partner for so long in his professional relationship with Ricky Gervais that it was perhaps inevitable he would address the issue at the top of the show. The good thing about going on tour, apart from meeting ladies, is, he says, that he doesn't have to share the profits with "you know who".Although Gervais is the louder of the two and Merchant usually remained behind the camerain their early career together, the latter has steadily come to the fore; after occasional appearances in The Office a more substantial role in Extras (pictured below, with Read more ...