What a joke: the 10 funniest comedy shows of 2020 | The comedy

ten

Leslie Jones: Time Machine

Netflix

Best known in the UK for Ghostbusters and in comedy for Saturday Night Live, Leslie Jones showed off her stand-up skills with this grand special performed by Game of Thrones creators DB Weiss and David Benioff. Don’t expect dragons – but there is a lot of fantasy, as Jones travels through time to meet his increasingly older youngsters. There’s even a prince – who Jones performs a sexy dance for in the show’s special moment.

9

Steve Martin and Martin Short

SSE Hydro, Glasgow

The coronavirus was already in the air when these Two Amigos arrived from North America with their old-fashioned comedy cabaret in March. The British lockdown halted the tour at its peak, but not before Martin and Martin had delighted Glasgow with camaraderie, banjo and ruthless mutual mockery. The memories of their carefree recklessness shine even brighter than the gloom that followed. Read the full review.

8

Nabil Abdulrashid

21Soho, London

Anglo-Nigerian stand-up Nabil Abdulrashid has received death threats after his near-bone racing gear on Britain’s Got Talent. He received nothing but applause from me when I saw him at the Sunday Antics party in London last October. His 40-minute set – edgy, thoughtful, indebted to no one – raised the roof in Soho and raised high expectations for his first tour in 2021. Read the full review.

seven

Sarah Cooper: Everything is fine

Netflix

It wasn’t a done deal that viral star Sarah Cooper would be making the jump from her lip-syncing videos of Donald Trump to a Netflix special. But Everything’s Fine has proven that Cooper is a keeper. A parody daytime news show that turns into a feverish America 2020 dream, this sketch-turned-psychic collapse has distilled this weird year like nothing else. Read the full review.

6

Kim Noble: futile attempts (to survive tomorrow)

Podcast / Spotify

For many of us, 2020 has been a year of isolation and existential terror. For Kim Noble, it’s every year, as her career in black comedy and “the art of failed performance” has vividly demonstrated. This summer brought his Futile Attempts podcast, each episode detailing a new approach to finding meaning in a meaningless world. Part prank, part broken, these daring, meta audio tracks were a must-listen. Read the full review.

5

Pin zoom sketch

Online

We were in for digital comedy in 2020, as the live performance industry searched for new ways to work – and make a living. Much of the online comedy has left a need for stand-up in the real world. But not this series of short twosome the Pin skit videos, brilliant little comedies of Zoom-era manners making hay with our still uncertain world of working from home, (dis) connecting in cyberspace. Read more.

4

Maria Bamford: weakness is the mark

Netflix

You might call Weakness Is the Brand “back to normal” after Maria Bamford’s previous stand-up special, delivered to an audience of her parents and no one else. But normal is not Bamford’s job. Her new Netflix special found the 50-year-old in remission from the battles of sanity front and center on her sitcom Lady Dynamite, but still delivering a complex, characterful – and freakish stand-up without repentance. Read the full review.

3

Epstein Theater, Liverpool

It was the last live gig I saw before Lockdown 1.0 – and I can’t imagine a better lasting impression for the comedy. Here’s how exciting stand-up can be, as practiced by one of its creators – at least, in his post-1981 British fashion. This hometown outing found Scouser, 68, in heartbreaking form: scholarly, self-mockingly, and intimidating about Tories Laura Kuenssberg, David Miliband, and many more. Read the full review.

2

Aisling Bea

Greenwich Comedy Festival, London

After six months of not seeing any live comedy, the handful of concerts I saw in September felt like a gift from the standing gods. Bridget Christie at the Standup Under the Stars in Brighton was a highlight, but the star was Aisling Bea’s set at the Greenwich Comedy Festival, combining high-quality routines on Covid, Ireland and Jesus in one package irresistible goofball. Read the full review.

1

Russell Kane: Live at the Rose

Rose Theater, Kingston

In 2020, most new comedy shows have spent the year in a waiting pattern, waiting for a festival or touring circuit to get started on, when touring and festivals are allowed again. I felt – the whole comedy community felt it keenly – the loss of the Edinburgh Fringe, and I mourned all the amazing new shows and new talent that we couldn’t see.

But while the new, well-honed sets were meager on the pitch, we got to study comedy in extremis, reacting to its own biggest crisis, the biggest most of us have ever experienced. We watched comedians joke about the advent of Covid-19, saw them respond (online, mostly) as their industry closed, and – as audiences began to creep into clubs and theaters – we turned to them to help us deal with this strange, disturbing year.

So the best performance of 2020, for me, has to be the one that nailed – and urgently made funny – what it’s like to be alive, here and now, in the UK pandemic. The new strange behaviors and the constantly changing rules. The precious things we have lost. The malignant incompetence of the government. This performance was that of Russell Kane.

For 40 minutes headlining Saturday night in southwest London, this most hyperactive comic pounced on Covid’s dark comedy, as if channeling our collective angst to fuel this fierce, funny rejection. and sincere of the world the pandemic threatened to create. It was a thrilling reminder of what comedy can do, although sadly it didn’t extend to the Covid shutdown: the theater closed for lockdown 2.0 the next day. Read the full review.