Showing titles in Performing Arts

The Museum of Curiosity is BBC Radio 4's monumental comedy edifice, and the only one with gargoyles in the foyer. It allows nothing inside unless it makes you scratch your head, stroke your chin or, at the very least, go 'Hmm'. Secondly, it is almost completely empty. Fortunately, helping to fill its vacant plinths is a gathering of the world's most original minds.

After almost 25 years in the making, the most rumored comedy album is finally hitting the streets. As the elder statesman of bizarre one liners, Wright has had a decades long career creating the smartest, surrealist, oddball comedy out there, delivered in his characteristic deadpan.

Everyone has an online life, and when the great British public put pen to keyboard to leave a review, they almost always write something hilarious. One Person Found This Helpful is the panel game that invites an all-star line-up to celebrate the good, the bad and the baffling.

Comedian Jim Norton is dirty...really dirty...the kind of dirty that makes The Aristocrats look like a knock-knock joke. Fortunately for him, his kind of dirty humor has earned him the distinction of being third microphone on the immensely popular Opie & Anthony syndicated radio show. In Happy Endings, Jim brings his raw, hilarious, and offensively honest comedy to Audible® listeners.

After bottoming out, being institutionalized, and getting sober all by the tender age of fifteen, Moshe Kasher found himself asking: “What’s next?” Over the ensuing decades, he discovered the answer: a lot. There was his time as a boy-king of Alcoholics Anonymous, a kind of pubescent proselytizer for other teens getting and staying sober. He was a rave promoter turned DJ turned sober ecstasy dealer in San Francisco’s techno warehouse party scene of the 1990s.

It was one of the most reliable jokes in Charlie Hill’s stand-up routine: “My people are from Wisconsin. We used to be from New York. We had a little real estate problem.” In We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, acclaimed comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff focuses on one of comedy’s most significant and little-known stories: how, despite having been denied representation in the entertainment industry, Native Americans have influenced and advanced the art form.

Alfie Moore spent 18 years on the Humberside police force before turning to stand-up comedy. In each episode of this live stand-up show, he takes his audience through a scenario based on a real-life case and tasks them with deciding how they would have acted in the circumstances. Along the way Alfie spills the beans on what it's really like to be one of Britain's finest, tells us some great anecdotes about law breakers and makers that he's come across and gets his audience to divulge secrets about their own, sometimes less than strictly law-abiding lives.

What are cash-strapped 40-somethings like Harry (played by Kris Marshall) supposed to do when they see their cash-rich, equity-released parents spending all their inheritance? It doesn’t help that Harry’s rich brother seems to upstage him at every turn as he tries to make ends meet and support his family. As their father's 65th birthday approaches, and the money starts disappearing, Harry decides to see if he can ‘help’ them to change course.

Susan Calman has some very strong opinions, and in her radio debut she expresses them with her trademark wit and charm. In series 1, she examines the current hot political topic of equal marriage, looks at the issues surrounding the death penalty from the perspective gained whilst working on death row, considers how best to deal with depression and evaluates what it means to be Scottish. In series 2 she explains why she has never been interested in having children, explores society’s obsession with appearance, discusses intellectual snobbery and asks what it is that makes us human.

A selection of 1960s sketches from "Round the Horne" featuring the outrageously camp couple, Julian and Sandy. Oozing with innuendo and double-entendre, they engage on a variety of entrepreneurial endeavours, from Guided Tripettes to the Bona Guest House, Bogmouth.

Hello. It's Todd Barry. Yes, the massively famous comedian. I have billons of fans all over the world, so I do my fair share of touring. While I love doing shows in the big cities (New York, Chicago, Cleveland), I also enjoy a good secondary market (Rochester, Springfield, Toledo). There's something great about performing in a place where they don't expect to see you.

Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan performs an extraordinary stand up show in Dublin at Vicar Street. Tommy is second only to U2 in ticket sales in Ireland. His fame has spread to the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The DVD recording of this show was No.1 in Ireland for three weeks.

Phil Wang hates scary films. Not only does the spine tingling, adrenaline pumping, heart lurching experience make him feel queasy rather than excited, he also cannot see any value at all to horror cinema. In this series, he gives fellow comedians, friends and entertainers a rare chance to convince him otherwise. In each episode, Phil will be joined by a famous guest who has one shot at converting him by offering up the film they see as the pinnacle of the genre, in a bid to turn him to the dark side.

Join professional comedy writer Joel Morris on a hilarious journey into the hidden world of shared laughter, where he reveals the mechanisms that make jokes work and what comedy can teach us about ourselves. Offering astute analysis of everything from stand-up to slapstick and sitcom to spoof, Morris examines comedic patterns, rhythms, and dynamics to uncover the algorithms that secretly underpin comedy.

Have you ever experienced something you just can’t explain – an uncanny encounter with things that go bump in the night? Did it leave you with an unshakable belief in the paranormal? Or feeling like an idiot when your flatmate pointed out it was just your cat treading on the squeaky floorboard? Either way - you’re not alone! Join comedian Jamali Maddix as he asks fellow comics and celebrities to reveal their spookiest real-life tales and most uncanny experiences.

Episode 2 in the third series of The Ricky Gervais Show, in which Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant carry out a post-operative examination of Karl Pilkington.

Step-by-Step to Stand-Up Comedy, written and narrated by Greg Dean, is a comprehensive guide for people who are funny, want to be funnier, or have dreams of being a stand-up comedian. This first-of-its-kind audiobook demystifies the craft of comedy by breaking it down to the fundamental skills used by professional funny people. Dean lays out these skills in simple-to-understand lessons that are easy to practice and master.

Funny, irreverent, sometimes shocking, and occasionally downright filthy, in Allegedly...the Popbitch Podcast, comedians Ellie Taylor and Dan Schreiber, alongside Popbitch editor Chris Lochery, geek out about all-things-celebrity, giving listeners a uniquely entertaining, fun-fact-and-gossip-filled insight into the world of showbusiness and how it really works. A ‘Sidebar of Shame’ for the ears.

Mike Bubbins, star of the BBC sitcom Mammoth, has recorded his first stand up comedy show. It's a very funny performance and includes a lot of hilarious stories, nostalgia for the old days, and optimism about the good new days. Recorded live in Wales, Mike proves what an accomplished comedian he is.

Radio 4's longest-running panel show, in which contestants are challenged to speak on a on a given topic for 60 seconds without hesitation, deviation or repetition, returns with Sue Perkins at the helm for this complete collection of episodes from 2023. Featuring quickfire improvisation, inspired ad-libbing and spontaneous hilarity - as well as a live studio audience - join Sue Perkins and her guests as they battle for points, glory and the perfect, uninterrupted minute.