Alexei David Sayle is an English actor, author, stand-up comedian, television presenter and former recording artist. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement in the 1980s. He was voted the 18th greatest stand-up comic of all time on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-ups in 2007. In an updated 2010 poll he came 72nd.
Alternative comedy is a term coined in the 1980s for a style of comedy that makes a conscious break with the mainstream comedic style of an era. The phrase has had different connotations in different contexts: in the UK, it was used to describe content that was an "alternative" to the mainstream of live comedy, which often involved racist and sexist material. In other contexts, it is the nature of the form that is "alternative", avoiding reliance on a standardised structure of a sequence of jokes with punch lines. Patton Oswalt has defined it as "comedy where the audience has no pre-set expectations about the crowd, and vice versa. In comedy clubs, there tends to be a certain vibe—alternative comedy explores different types of material."
The Comedy Store is a comedy club located in Soho, London, England, opened in 1979 by Don Ward and Peter Rosengard.
David Hoyle is an English performance artist, avant-garde cabaret artist, singer, actor, comedian and film director. His performances are known to combine many disparate elements, from satirical comedy to painting, surrealism and even striptease, much of which is aggressive in nature. Himself homosexual, Hoyle's work has often focused on themes in the LGBTQ community, attacking what he sees as dominant trends in "bourgeois Britain and the materialistic-hedonistic gay scene". According to The Guardian his performances have led him to become "something of a legend" on the London cabaret circuit.
Jenny Eclair is an English comedian, novelist, and actress, best known for her roles in Grumpy Old Women between 2004 and 2007 and in Loose Women in 2011 and 2012.
Richard Crispin Armitage is an English actor. He received recognition in the UK with his first leading role as John Thornton in the British television programme North & South (2004). His role as dwarf king and leader Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's film trilogy adaptation of The Hobbit brought him international recognition.
Scala is a former cinema turned nightclub and live music venue in Pentonville Road, London, England, near King's Cross railway station.
The Raymond Revuebar (1958–2004) was a theatre and strip club at 11 Walker's Court, in the centre of London's Soho district. For many years, it was the only venue in London that offered full-frontal, on-stage nudity of the sort commonly seen in other cities in Europe and North America. Its huge brightly lit sign declaring it to be the "World Centre of Erotic Entertainment" made the Revuebar a local landmark.
Tim Arnold is an English singer-songwriter, composer, producer musician and film maker from London. His music has been compared to David Bowie and he is the last musician to collaborate with David Bowie and Kate Bush mentor Lindsay Kemp.
Dusty Limits is an Australian-born cabaret singer and comedian based in the United Kingdom, and one of the leading figures on the "new cabaret" scene.
The Dresden Dolls are an American musical duo from Boston, Massachusetts. Formed in 2000, the group consists of Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione. The two describe their style as "Brechtian punk cabaret", a phrase invented by Palmer because she was "terrified" that the press would invent a name that "would involve the word gothic". The Dresden Dolls are part of an underground dark cabaret movement that started gaining momentum in the early 2000s.
Jonny Woo is a British comedian, actor and drag queen. He co-owns The Glory, an East London pub in which he regularly performs.
Frisky & Mannish is a British musical comedy double act, created and performed by singer Laura Corcoran and pianist-singer Matthew Floyd Jones. Known for their pop music parodies, the duo have toured the fringe festival and comedy festival circuits in the United Kingdom and Australia, and appeared on a number of British television and radio programmes. The act's name derives from two incidental characters mentioned in one couplet of Byron's Don Juan: "Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Maevia Mannish, / Both longed extremely to be sung in Spanish"
John and Edward Grimes, collectively known as Jedward, are an Irish singing and television presenting duo. They are identical twins who first appeared as John & Edward in the sixth series of The X Factor in 2009, generating a phenomenon of ironic popularity described as "the Jedward paradox". They finished in sixth place and were managed by Louis Walsh, who was their mentor during The X Factor.
EastEnd Cabaret is a musical comedy cabaret character duo based in London, England, formed in late 2009.
Maurice Huggett was the proprietor of a private members club known as the Phoenix Artist Club in Soho, London.
John van der Put is a magician and comedian from the United Kingdom who performs under the stage name Piff the Magic Dragon. A winner of multiple awards from British magic societies, he toured as a supporting act for Mumford and Sons and has appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool Us and America's Got Talent. In June 2019, van der Put was named one of Variety's 10 Comics to Watch for 2019. Van der Put lives in Las Vegas and has a residency at The Flamingo.
Kate Dimbleby is an English cabaret singer and songwriter.
Phoebe Mary Waller-Bridge is an English actress and screenwriter. She is best known as the creator, head writer, and star of the BBC sitcom Fleabag (2016–2019), which was based on her one-woman show of the same name. She was also showrunner, head writer, and executive producer of the first series of Killing Eve (2018–2022), which she adapted for television.
Rhys James is an English stand-up comedian.
