Edward Regan Murphy is an American comedian, actor, and singer. Widely recognized as one of the greatest comedians of all time, he has received accolades such as a Golden Globe Award, a Grammy Award, and an Emmy Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award. He was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2015 and the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2023.
Lea DeLaria is an American comedian, actress, and jazz singer. She portrayed Carrie "Big Boo" Black on the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019). She also starred in the Broadway productions POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive in 2022 and the 2000 revival of The Rocky Horror Show. She was the first openly gay comic to appear on American television in a 1993 appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show.
Stand-up comedy is a form of comedy performance directed to a live audience, where the performer stands on a stage and delivers humorous and satirical monologues sometimes incorporating physical acts. These performances are typically composed of rehearsed scripts but often include varying degrees of live crowd interaction. Stand-up comedy consists of one-liners, stories, observations, or shticks that can employ props, music, impressions, magic tricks, or ventriloquism.
Eddie Izzard, also known as Suzy Izzard, is a British stand-up comedian, actor and activist. Her comedic style takes the form of what appears to the audience as rambling whimsical monologues and self-referential pantomime.
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolishly, or employing prop comedy. A comedian who addresses an audience directly is called a stand-up comedian.
Alistair Charles McGowan is an English impressionist, comic, actor, singer and writer best known to British audiences for The Big Impression, which was, for four years, one of BBC1's top-rating comedy programmes – winning numerous awards, including a BAFTA in 2003. He has also worked extensively in theatre and appeared in the West End in Art, Cabaret, The Mikado and Little Shop of Horrors. As a television actor, he played the lead role in BBC1's Mayo. He wrote the play Timing and the book A Matter of Life and Death or How to Wean Your Man off Football with former comedy partner Ronni Ancona. He also provided voices for Spitting Image.
The Secret Policeman's Ball is a series of benefit shows staged initially in the United Kingdom to raise funds for the human rights organisation Amnesty International. The shows started in 1976 featuring popular British comedians but later included leading musicians and actors. The Secret Policeman's Ball shows are credited by many prominent entertainers with having galvanised them to become involved with Amnesty and other social and political causes in succeeding years.
Dylan William Moran is an Irish comedian, writer, actor and artist. He is best known for his observational comedy, the comedy series Black Books, and his work with Simon Pegg in films such as Shaun of the Dead and Run Fatboy Run. He was also one of two lead characters in the Irish black comedy film A Film with Me in It.
The Hammersmith Apollo, currently called the Eventim Apollo for sponsorship reasons, and formerly known as the Hammersmith Odeon, is a live entertainment performance venue, originally built as a cinema called the Gaumont Palace. Located in Hammersmith, London, it is an art deco Grade II* listed building.
Circle is the name of a stand-up tour by the comedian Eddie Izzard in 2000.
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg is a 1967 play by the English playwright Peter Nichols, first staged at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland, before transferring to the Comedy Theatre in London's West End.
Unrepeatable is the title of a performance by British comedian Eddie Izzard. It was filmed on 14 March 1994 at the Albery Theatre, released on VHS and later DVD, and follows her first show, Live at the Ambassadors.
The "Four Yorkshiremen" is a comedy sketch that parodies nostalgic conversations about humble beginnings or difficult childhoods. It features four men from Yorkshire who reminisce about their upbringing. As the conversation progresses they try to outdo one another, and their accounts of deprived childhoods become increasingly absurd.
Per Henrik Schyffert is a Swedish comedian, actor, musician and radio and television personality.
Alan Graham Carr is an English comedian, broadcaster and writer. His breakthrough was in 2001, winning the City Life Best Newcomer of the Year and the BBC New Comedy Awards. In the ensuing years, Carr's career burgeoned on the Manchester comedy circuit before he became known for co-hosting The Friday Night Project (2006–2009) with Justin Lee Collins. This led to the release of a short-lived entertainment show Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong (2008), and he went on to star in the comedy chat show Alan Carr: Chatty Man (2009–2016) which aired on Channel 4. Since 2017, Carr often stands in as a team captain on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. In 2019, he became a judge on RuPaul's Drag Race UK. In 2021, he began hosting BBC One's Interior Design Masters.
A solo performance, sometimes referred to as a one-man show, one-woman show, or one-person show, features a single person telling a story for an audience, typically for the purpose of entertainment. This type of performance comes in many varieties, including autobiographical creations, comedy acts, novel adaptations, vaudeville, poetry, music and dance. In 1996, Rob Becker's Defending the Caveman became the longest-running one-person play in the history of Broadway theatre.
Dominic Anthony Holland is an English comedian, author, actor and broadcaster. He won the 1993 Perrier Best Newcomer Award in Edinburgh. His BBC Radio 4 series, The Small World of Dominic Holland, won a Comic Heritage Award.
Andre Vincent is a comedian, writer, actor and comedy historian. A situational comic, Vincent is known for his observations about health matters, including his experiences with diabetes, cancer and kidney surgery.
Stripped is the title of a stand-up comedy tour by Eddie Izzard, and is a continuation of her style of comedy, full of "stream-of-conscious banter and predilection for nonsensical detours and frequent tangents." The tour was performed from 28 April to 9 August 2008 with three "warm-up" dates. It has been called "not only hilarious but quite remarkable." As for the name of the tour, Izzard says she called it Stripped because
"The heels got too high on the last two tours. Now I've just gone back to blokey mode, so I've got all this movement back which I couldn't do before. The set is leaner, what I'm wearing is leaner and just focusing on what I'm talking about. I keep talking about God and I come to all these different conclusions. I'm talking about the whole civilization, trying to strip that back, as well. The last 5,000 years we did everything. I put out my idea what we're doing here. I think it's all random. If there is a God, his plan is very similar to someone not having a plan."
Sarah Townsend, known professionally as Sarah McGuinness, is an Irish singer, composer, producer, director, and screenwriter.
