Comedy in Edinburgh – What’s On and Where to Find it in October
With the chill in the air pushing everyone indoors, and it being long enough since August that everyone’s hopefully recovered from the Fringe, now is a great time to dive into everything that Edinburgh’s comedy scene has to offer.
A small primer for those new to the city: In addition to the big, theatre-filling comedians that tour to the Edinburgh Playhouse, Festival Theatre and recently the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh also has two comedy clubs, Monkey Barrel Comedy and The Stand. These venues have weekly mixed bill nights, usually made up of shorter sets by 4 or 5 comedians, which are a great way to find out about the talent within the local scene. The clubs also programme hour-long tour shows from up-and-coming and just-about-to-make-it-big comedians. Seeing those kinds of shows are a great way to get bragging rights for when these comedians inevitably make it big and you get to say you saw them in a 150-seater basement near a Starbucks.
As per usual, both Monkey Barrel Comedy and The Stand have a fantastic programme of tour shows in the coming month. A show I’m particularly excited about is Spencer Jones’ at Monkey Barrel on Monday 21st October. The show is joyfully random, packed with mildly upsetting props and impressive loop-pedalling, but always keeps a sense of the story it’s trying to tell (that of Jones moving to the countryside with his family). Although you have no idea what’s coming next, you always feel in safe hands. Other highlights of the club programmes for the month include Amy Matthews (Monkey Barrel, 20th October), Pierre Novellie (Monkey Barrel, 24th October), Taskmaster NZ star Urzila Carlson (The Stand, 21st October) and Milo Edwards (Monkey Barrel, 27th October).
There’s also plenty on offer outside of the comedy clubs, as Edinburgh is host to a number of small-but-mighty comedy nights in pubs and bars across the city. Open Comedy (every Tuesday, Artisan Roast) is a fantastic night (with free entry!) – the shows usually have upwards of 10 comedians on the bill so are a great way to get up-to-speed on the local scene very quickly. In addition, if you’re wanting to get some very advance looks on next year’s Fringe, Cracking New Jokes at the Dragonfly Cocktail Bar is a great new material night that runs every Thursday.
There’s plenty of ways to engage with Edinburgh comedy both this month and throughout the year, and now that everyone’s slightly more well-rested following the fun of August, now’s a great time to either start or continue your exploration of the local scene.
image ‘Reading play’, Katya Roberts, @katyaillustrates