Stewart Lee – Content Provider Northampton Royal & Derngate, March 2017 Regarded by many as a trailblazer at the top of the UK's comedy ravine, with 'Content Provider' Stewart Lee has surpassed even his own superlative standards and delivers what must be his most crafted and by far funniest and best show to date. With masterful structure and the perfect balance of self-effacement and aggression, conscience-pricking and lunacy this show ticks every conceivable box for any come

Tony Law: A Law Undo His-elf What Welcome. Leamington Spa, Royal Spa Centre. March 2017 For a crazy guy, Tony Law has a surprisingly settling warmth and familiar appeal. His seemingly random on-stage ramblings are laced together with a healthy dose of physical theatre and more side-tracking than a spider crab negotiating a particularly tricky slalom. What seems like an anarchic mix of ideas and the thinnest of material delivered at varying pace and volume is actually relateab

Seymour Mace - Er...Work in Progress Leicester Comedy Festival, February 2017 Now an established part of the annual Edinburgh Fringe, Seymour Mace is using the Leicester Comedy Festival to try out his new show before taking it to Adelaide for a final polish ahead of the summer. This was the very first outing for this brand new material, and nobody needed to read Mace's promotional blurb to know this was a Work in Progress. Using his familiar format of running together sketche

Daniel Nicholas - Poster Boy Leicester Comedy Festival, February 2017 This hour with Daniel Nicholas is a modern version of a stand-up variety show involving a fair amount of audience participation, games, music and various zany antics. The full-ish audience at The Cookie lapped up every second, and although this could have been put down in part to the idea that it was an expert piece of scheduling - a free show on a Saturday afternoon at a cool city centre venue - it gradual

Colin Chadwick - Digital Legacy Leicester Comedy Festival, February 2017 Here is a show with a fundamentally original theme at its core, it is well-researched, delivered by a funny guy with great comic timing and has a rather cool concluding section the style of which is seldom-seen. Colin Chadwick is an instantly likeable chap with the most easy-going of styles, not over-confident but very much in charge of his audience. The opening 10 minutes of this 50-minute show is some

The Abridged Dapper 11 hour Monochrome Dream Show Leicester Comedy Festival, February 2017 Once in every while an artist finds him or herself at a convenient juncture where they are physically able to produce their ideas for others to enjoy, irrespective of convention, commerce or common perception. In reality this usually boils down to somebody simply having available time and funds to allow them to follow their creative instincts which may fly fully in the face of popular

The Elvis Dead Leicester Comedy Festival, February 2017 On a cold Sunday night in an otherwise-deserted corner of the city a packed audience formed one of the most vociferous and appreciative crowds witnessed at this year’s Leicester Comedy Festival. Wolverhampton comedian Rob Kemp debuted his new show “The Elvis Dead” to a thunderous reception, an ecstatic crowd and two standing ovations. Without the more usual string of dates to build confidence and reputation but playing

Steve Bujega - Summer Camp - Work In Progress Leicester Comedy Festival, February 2017 This moderately turned-out basement venue crowd were treated to the very first public outing of Steve Bujega's new show, based on his recollections of his time as a Councilor at a summer camp in the US some years ago. He delivered 50 minutes of well thought out material, nicely structured with a strong narrative and peppered liberally with jokes. He introduced it right at the start as a n

Sarah Johnson - Reminiscing Leicester Comedy Festival, February 2017 In a surprisingly full pub on a wet and windy Wednesday evening in Leicester Sarah Johnson unveiled and shared her new show with a fully-suspecting public. Fully-suspecting as, unlike the majority of small-venue shows at this festival, most people in this audience had heard great things about her and knew that in the short couple of years that she has been doing stand-up she has already made a name for herse

Russell Hicks - From The Heart Leicester Comedy Festival, February 2017 Small audiences can often create a special and intimate gig, as the performer has a wealth of self-effacing material ahead of them based on the very evident fact that hardly anyone has shown up to see them. What usually happens though, is that the comedian will persist with delivering their prepared material albeit adapting it to suit the room. This can be done quite skilfully by many, can still be highly