Modern Stand-up Comedy

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Who in modern British stand-up is worth watching?

Who is actually funny?

Definitely not Jack Whitehall, James Acaster or Joe Lycett; three soy-boy mediocrities who, back in the nineties, would get a couple of appearances on Friday Night comedy with Tommy Tiernan and disappear.

Is Ricky Gervais’ stand-up funny? I watched Apocalypse and found it a bit obvious. ‘Must bait the wokoids’, this will generate headlines’.

I’ve seen Stewart Lee live (once may years ago) and although it’s combative and right -on, it’s at least his own style.

The trouble is he’s spawned a legion of fanboys who want to be the next Stewart Lee and they’re not smart enough to pull it off. It’s that or comedy-by-box-ticking. Female and black comedians who get gigs on panel shows and have a sycophantic audience of liberal students clapping like seals. They can’t form a career doing comedy nights at clubs because the general public would heckle them and make them cry.
(see Kumar, Nish)

Most of the newer comedians on Netflix are just trading on their innate sexual or racial characteristics. It’s boring, so boring that Amy Schumer’s entire repertoire has been satirised by the meme of her uttering ‘my vagina’, then receiving adulation from grey-faced NPCs;

‘Comedy Unleashed’ is a reaction to woke but I haven’t found many of the acts very funny, as they try too hard to be anti-PC. they aren’t like Bernard Manning or Mike Reid who just wrote and performed the material they wanted to, regardless of how PC it is. It’s a deliberate attempt to be controversial and edgy. They gave their audiences – largely working class – the respect that paying punters deserve.
Comedians are usually quite dismissive when an audience reacts with an ‘ooohh’ at a mildly controversial idea that the comedian then has to explain to them.

The only stand-up act i’ve found funny in the past ten years is Mickey Flanagan. His material and delivery are quite unique in this day and age. Never tries to be a shock jock and frequently mocks the pretentions of the liberal middle-class, the very people who make up the bulk of comedians on the BBC and Channel 4 for the past twenty years. He seems to have gone quiet recently which is a shame. He and Sean Lock were the only worthwhile comedians on TV for large stretches of the 2010s.

The rest are posh women, including the men.

unherd

Nominated by Cuntamus Prime.

74 thoughts on “Modern Stand-up Comedy”

    • Celeb game shows are swamped with “stand up comedicunts”, never heard of any of them.

  2. back in the day I found Ben Eltons stand up very funny, I skso found Eddie Izzards stand up shows intelligent and funny ….went to several in London and they were great. His ‘cake or death’ routine I still find funny. you tube it.

    however he is now a cunt snd not funny, snd hasn’t been for over 20 years

  3. I miss Sean Lock.
    Truly one of the few people who you would find it utterly impossible to guess what he’d say next.

    • Along with Frankie Boyle, who I found hilarious when he was at his alcoholic best.

  4. Correction; Ricky Gervais’ recent stand-up is called Armageddon.

    That’s how good it was.

    • Gervais did have a go at the woke left about men identifying as women, so good on him for that:

      “And now the old-fashioned ones say, ‘Oh, they want to use our toilets.’ ‘Why shouldn’t they use your toilets?’ ‘For ladies!’ ‘They are ladies — look at their pronouns! What about this person isn’t a lady?’ ‘Well, his penis.’ ‘Her penis, you fucking bigot!’

  5. Andrew Lawrence is usually correct in his put downs of modern politics, but unfortunately that usually doesn’t lend itself to side splitting laughter.
    Can’t think of anyone who generates belly laughs these days.

    • I think he’s a better commentator than stand-up. When i used Twitter i followed him after he made his remarks on token female comedians. He took on the big names (like Dara O’Briain) and verbally smashed them to pieces.

      It was entertaining for a while and showed the BBC’s favourites as being pretty dim and thin-skinned.

  6. For pure comedic value it would be hard to beat the clowns currently writing the Tory Party manifesto.
    Apparently it’s going to promise substantial tax cuts.
    Tax cuts from the party that’s put taxes up to their highest level in 70 years.

    Side splitting.

    • You forgot to say that it will also feature public spending increases. Liz Truss 2.0?

  7. that mong woman who is not funny but ticks boxes so is promoted just on that basis…..takes five minutes to tell a 30 second joke, then the punch line comes along another two minutes later

    utterly pointless trying to be s comedian if your punchlines aren’t punchy.

    prime example of wokeness that unfunny cunt

      • ‘Wholeheartedly agree, she’s painful to watch.’

        I don’t watch. I’ve seen her once.

        We all know why she’s there.

        Patronising, unfunny crap.

    • Blasphemy, CC!
      That’s my beloved you’re talking about!
      The amount of mọng saliva she can produce whilst administering a bj has to be seen to be believed.
      Even more slobber than Ellie Simmonds.

      • Rosie Jones – that’s her name. I can’t understand a fucking word she says, in fact I understand more when a dinghy dweller speaks to me in their own language.

      • Personally I think it just takes the piss of the public at large to have the likes of her and the gay for the sake of it not to mention the dark skins all thrust on us and being told by the mum that they are great comedians because they fucking ain’t funny at all and so obvious why they have got the gig
        Have they no shame of being used by the production as token box tickers
        I don’t believe for a second that most viewers would prefer to watch these cunts rather than true comedians who get laughs through being funny and not from audience politeness.

    • Never heard of her until 2 minutes ago. From a 60 second review she’s as funny as the clap and a very obvious box ticker. Nish Kumar or romesh rangawhatsit but with tits.

      • she has got a fair pair. I suppose only positive of her disability means if you walked up her snd gave them a right good mashing, it would take her five minutes to tell you she wanted you to stop…….or ten minutes to call the police and by then I would have shot my bolt and be a mile away.

  8. Louis CK or Bill Burr if you can bring yourselves to watch some Yanks.

    George Carlin and Richard Prior, if you want it in Black and White.

    🇺🇸

    • The yanks always produce good stand-ups. There’s a lot of dross of course, but they at least have the freedom to say what a lot of British comics won’t, for fear of their careers and the carpet-riding fraternity.

      Jimmy Carr recently made a good point about yhe idea of ‘punching down’.

      Why is it punching down to make jokes about or around certain minorities? it assumes they are beneath normal people.

      It’s just reduced comedy to the woke worldview of ‘oppressor and the oppressed’.

    • Speaking of Bill Burr F is for Family is absolutely brilliant. Different country and different time but nevertheless, I felt that.

  9. I don’t bother with “modern comedy” much…when I’ve had a few sherries I might watch a bit of Gervais.

    Otherwise it’s youtube for Bernard Manning,funny as fuck.

    Anyhow,as Mr Twatt has already pointed out,no need to go looking for amusement,just stick the news on for the Election manifestos.

    Oh and it seems quite a lot of misfortune has taken place in Africa (unheard of I know) over the last day or two so that put a grin on my face.

    Good show.

    • Ive seen Lenny. Just his very existence and presence near a microphone will have the Guardian readers putting a pomander to their noses.

  11. Have to admit that Bill Hicks was good. Even his pronunciations of the English language made me laugh. Saw him on stage in London at the start of the 90s, when he knew he was dying. Glad I saw the first extended act when he wouldn’t leave the stage, besides seeing miserable faces in the queue for the second act around midnight.

  13. 🤣
    🎸
    both are dead as far as I’m concerned

    Manning, chubby brown or Mongolian spacker,BBC arsewipes….the who, Sabbath,zep or sheercunt,capaltwat,shitswift.

    By christ thank fuck I’ve lived through some belters 👍

    • I loved Chubby walking onto the stage with ‘have some consideration for the deaf, if you’re gonna fart, make it smell’. Excellent night that.

      • You made me remember a thing (I can date to 1999) that I’d all but forgotten… walking-in 2 mins late. Fred McCauley warmup for Dylan Moran that night … McCauley declares “I fontbkkiw if there are any here tonight, but deaf people? … deaf people are bastards” .. the audience laughs .. I wonder why, exactly, .. then catch my first glimpse of the stage … Fred has his mouth covered with his hand, as if he’s scratching his upper lip.(as he’s berating [the deaf].

        Nice.

  14. Bob Monkhouse and Jimmy Tarbuck were funny if you ever saw them live.

    They were shit on the television.

    Chubby Brown, Bernard Manning and that cunt Jethro were good too.

    Fuck today’s comedians.

  15. Totally agree with Cuntamus Bernard Manning and Mike Reid were piss yourself funny also Mickey Flanagan of recent acts Lee Mack and Sean Lock occasionally and early mock the week had it’s moments but totally unwatchable now.
    All the new lot just ain’t funny and what’s supposed to be comedy on tv is just too fucking p.c. to be funny

  16. The best comedian ever (in my humble opinion) is Doug Stanhope.
    All of his stuff is on Youtube.
    Perfect for a family car journey.

  17. Tom Stade is is fucking brilliant, however, he’s not on the idiot lantern anymore as he doesn’t pull punches and doesn’t have a woke bone in his body when it comes to stand-up. Mrs. No Name and me usually see him live once or twice a year when he does his annual tour. Well worth a visit if he’s in the area.

    https://youtu.be/mZfvWBoqVrQ?si=6M4ScsLqbBWrJBbw

  18. Jimmy jones proper old school, jim eoin, frank skinner who ive both seen this year, absolutely top of there game.

  21. Like any art it’s subjective. No one person gets to decide who or what is funny. Some pompous cunts think they can but we don’t like them people.

  22. Funniest bloke I’ve seen live was Warren Mitchell doing Alf Garnett back in the 80s, but then that racist centered humour appeals to me and I dont believe all that middle class waffle about how he was laughing at people like me , I believe his writers wrote what they thought and covered it up with all the smarmy double talk. Nothing vaguely humorous on main stream tv anymore only repeats on one channel, cant recall its name, It ain’t half hot mum, Harry Enfield, Till death and a few more, but solo comics nothing, zilch, zero.

    • Johnny Speight, who wrote Till Death plus all the other Alf Garnett material, and Warren Mitchell (a Jew), were both lifelong socialists and supporters of the Labour Party. Make of that what thou wilt.

    • Sorry CivvyDog, Warren Mitchell himself stated he was taking the piss out of racists.

  23. Sort of OT, but then as we’re talking about comedians; in this area we have all received a missive this morning which bears the banner in block capitals:

    THIS IS YOUR POLL CARD OPEN AND READ IMMEDIATELY

    (I guess when you’re addressing only plebs you don’t waste the ink required for the word “please”.) It consists of two A5 sheets fixed together around all four edges and in one corner is a picture of a curled corner and the message “open here”. My wife and I could not separate the two sheets successfully and ended up tearing our poll cards in half. I spoke to a little gaggle of the neighbours in the street a few minutes ago and without exception they all were defeated by this new-fangled system. The recycling bins will be full of poll cards this week.

    • We received ours yesterday.

      9”x6” cards with all relevant information printed thereon. No fuss, no bother, they’ll go in the shredder when we get back from the polling station, no recycling cunt is going to benefit by stealing our identities. No siree!

  24. Leo Kearse is pretty good as it pertains to modern standup but can’t think of anyone else.

    • Richard Herring’s ok. I especially enjoyed his Prince Andrew mockery.

      • Yeah he’s a strange one these days. He seems to mock cancel culture and woke bollocks sometimes, while also taking aim at the Daily Mail and Trump.

        He certainly made Simon Pegg squirm when he asked about Pegg’s friendship with crazy Tom Cruise.

  25. I like Leo Kearse too👍

    Bernard manning the best in my opinion.

    If I want a laugh I’ll watch Steptoe and son.

    ‘Ooh you bleedin berk.”

  26. Watch ‘Live at the Appollo’.
    Fucking dire.

    I was a regular at the Embassy club for 15 years so no fucker gets any where near Bernard.
    Have seen Dawson way back. Great. Roy Walker, good. Monkhouse live was also excellent. Chubby still good.
    Flanagan the only cunt who deserves to be called stand up nowadays.

    • My favourite joke of Manning’s was his story about having a Pakistani neighbour, who told Manning how he was the better of the two.
      ‘Why is that?’ said Manning
      ‘I don’t live next door to a P4ki ‘.

      I haven’t watched Live at the Apollo for a good ten years.
      It became a parade of nobodies who performed one of three acts.

      1) Women joking about cake, dating and periods
      2) ethnics talking about being ethnic and how goofy middle-class white cunts are.
      3) young white middle-class men apologising for being white men, and how they’re failing at being dads.

  27. I used to like Jerry Sadowitz,
    But don’t really bother with stand up comedy since the world went woke.

    The funniest thing I’ve ever watched was ‘ Johns not mad’
    The documentary about tourettes.

    I had to change my undercrackers after laughing at that.

    https://youtu.be/awBf36MNLVg?si=7KRQiDhD5ANMFJXO

  28. I used to enjoy going to a comedy gig back in the day.

    I went to see Ben Elton at the Brighton Dome way back when he still wore those sparkly suits. Remember them? Every other word was F though and it became so monotonous I left at the interval. Not funny. His novels are good though.

    Went with a couple of mates to see Billy Connolly at Hammersmith Odeon in the 90s. No jokes, just rambling tangent after tangent after tangent nonsense. I faked needing the loo and legged it. Sorry lads. It was rubbish.

    Went to see Paul Merton at a theatre in London also in the ’90s. Very funny show. Top of the list though was Rob Newman. Saw him in creepy Crawley (I think) also in the ’90s. Painfully funny.

    Lewis Black used to be very funny. Seen him a few times, but the last time really fell flat. Seen a couple of his stand up ‘specials’ on telly since and he’s lost his edge. Just not funny any more. Pity.

    Then we have the comedy royalty who I’ve seen live:
    – Dave Allen – just brilliant
    – Bob Newhart – just class
    – Jerry Seinfeld – more amusing than funny if I’m honest

    Can’t think of any decent stand ups who I’d leave the house to see these days. I have all the Jimmy Carr DVDs and wanted to see him live for ages, but that hair transplant has made him look like a different person. Before he had a cheeky banter face. Now that’s gone completely. Weird. Anyone else think the same?

    • Hat off to you Imi for reminding me about Dave Allen.
      That cunt has nearly killed me several times where I’ve struggled to catch my breath from laughing.
      Another of the true greats.

      • Cheers Scunny me lad.

        I’ve told this story before on here, but here’s how it went.

        Dave Allen performed at a theatre in London sometime in the ’90s and had several nights in a row there. Can’t remember which one. Anyway, his show was very, very funny and when he got up to leave the stage at the end of the show, he got a standing ovation and huge cheers. Off he went. A few moments later he came back onto the stage and walked over to his chair. Naturally we all went crazy because we figured he’d do an encore. Nope. He picked up his glass of drink, raised it to the audience and walked off again. Completely faked us all out. Everyone just fell about laughing again at how funny, classy and cheeky that was.

        Can’t believe he’s been gone 20 years already. A true great.

    • saw jimmy carr about 10 years ago in glasgow and he was brilliant, must say i also saw him in london about 15 years ago and he did not make me laugh once, mind you we were both in a restaurant at the time and the cunt was eating his dinner.

  29. As a removal man I’m obviously a huge fan of the Chuckle Brothers and find it hilarious when some wit shouts

    “To me, to you”

    Something else that never gets old is when someone says the line from FRIENDS sitcom

    “Pivot!!”

    That creases me up that.

    Get fucked

  30. Not stand up, but the funniest live show I’ve seen in the last 10 years, the book of Mormon..

    Literally crying with laughter the whole show..

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