The 10 hottest comedy shows to see this autumn

Our critic’s selection of the funniest stand-up shows this season, including Natalie Palamides, Matt Forde and Andy Zaltzman

It might be getting cold outside, but not in theatres up and down the country, where this year’s hottest comedy acts are returning with their best gags, stories, impressions and more. 
From Andy Zaltzman (of Radio 4’s The News Quiz fame) taking the temperature of our troubled times, to Taskmaster’s Alex Horne teaming up with a five-piece jazz band: these are the shows you won’t want to miss. 
Previously best known as one half of Edinburgh Comedy Award-nominated sketch group The Delightful Sausage, Gledhill made her solo debut in 2022. That show was a soaring, saucy success – and her follow-up show has just won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Comedy Show.
Soho Theatre, London W1 (sohotheatre.com), Sept 3 and touring 
One of Australia’s finest observational stand-ups, Felicity Ward hasn’t toured a new show on these shores since her terrific 2018 set Busting a Nut. This long-overdue comeback should be a treat.
Castlefield Bowl, Manchester (felicityward.com), Sept 8 and touring
Taskmaster creator Alex Horne brings his clever, inventive brand of mucking-about to this side-project, which combines his comic talents with the musical chops of a five-piece jazz band. Just don’t say the show’s title too quickly.
Birmingham Symphony Hall (thehornesection.com), Sept 11 and touring
Only recently recovered from cancer, Spitting Image’s Matt Forde addresses that brush with death here – but the heart of his latest acclaimed show lies in his usual topical stand-up and spot-on impressions.
Norwich Playhouse (mattforde.com), Oct 2 and touring
The self-styled “world’s angriest optimist”, Millerick has a Rhod Gilbert-like gift for turning overblown rants into comic gold. His intriguing-sounding new show promises a slant look at the 1960s space race.
Alma Theatre, Bristol (garrettmillerick.com), Oct 5 and touring
You might never have imagined civil servant Gray as a lairy The Only Way is Essex extra who calls Rishi Sunak “babes”, and slips into Spanish when anxious, but after this bonkers show from one of the country’s best young character comics, you’ll never think of her any other way.
Soho Theatre, London W1 (sohotheatre.com), Oct 28 – Nov 2
Host of the Bugle podcast and Radio 4’s The News Quiz, the pun-loving Zaltzman is one of our most reliably funny political satirists. Who better to take the temperature of our troubled times?
Reading South Street Arts Centre (andyzaltzman.co.uk), Nov 1 and touring
In this uproarious love-letter to 1990s romcoms, Palamides plays both halves of a pair of lovers (lipstick and blouse on the left, half a beard and one trouser on the right) who split up on New Year’s Eve 1999.
Soho Theatre, London W1 (sohotheatre.com), Nov 6 – 30
Jack Tucker is a talentless, unfunny hack of a comedian – and the unwittingly hilarious fictional alter-ego of gifted clown Zach Zucker, who tears stand-up tropes apart in a loud, raucous, winningly chaotic show.
Soho Theatre, London W1 (sohotheatre.com), Nov 18 – 23
Character comic Kent-Walters’s debut was the late-night hit of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. Fans of The League of Gentlemen will love this hour in the company of the demonic Frankie Monroe, manager of The Misty Moon, “a working men’s club in Rotherham wot is also a portal to Hell”. 
Soho Theatre (sohotheatre.com), Nov 25 – 30