In the weeks building up to Edinburgh, there are OVER NINE THOUSAND comedy previews a day. Finding the best ones can be difficult. So it's a good job that Londonist knows its comedy! Go to at least four of these shows this week: Monday 14th: This Sketch Show Belongs to Lionel Richie proved themselves expert at guerilla advertising at the Fringe last year, when hundreds of stickers bedecked lampposts, toilets and vending machines declaring......

The London comedy scene is vast and multifarious at any time of the year, but during the run-up to Edinburgh it explodes beyond all comprehension. Luckily, we - and only we - know what the best shows of the week are. Cancel even the most essential of intrusive surgery to attend any of our recommendations. After all, laughter is the best medicine!! (citation needed) Monday 7th - Dan Antopolski may have crafted the most......

Mwhahaha. The Book Grocer rubs her hands together greedily as she contemplates the week ahead. Festival season kicks off this week, and its offerings may be summarised with one word: excellent. Tuesday: VS Naipaul fans will want to head to Daunt Books tonight to hear Patrick French and AN Wilson discuss French’s recent biography of the Nobel Prize-winning author, The World Is What It Is, heralded as a “magnificent achievement” (7pm, £5). Also on:......

Here's week four of our Edinburgh Festival preview recommendations. This isn't just a random list of events scraped from listings magazines and press releases - this is a genuine list of acts we adore, and that you should definitely see, especially while the price is nice. If you go to just one of these shows this week, we guarantee you'll come away feeling happy. Monday 30th - The Free Fringe has hosted hundreds of......

Here's week three of our pick of the week's best Edinburgh Festival previews, where big name-acts charge small prices while they try out new ideas. Embrace London's comedy scene in June and July like you would embrace your dearest friend, or a delicious pineapple, and see as many shows as you can while the price is "right". You'll do well to start with these four: Tuesday 24th - Top Islington club Fat Tuesdays hosts......

Meet Todd Barry, a deliciously dry American comedian who is making a long overdue trip to London this week, for a five-night run at the Soho Theatre. His biting, sarcastic outlook on life and deadpan audience banter have lit up comedy festivals around the world. Although some Brits might not recognise the name, comedy fans will know him from Flight of the Conchords as the bongo player that almost split up the band in......

Don't Ever Heckle is a column where Londonist gets drunk with has a chat with the most exciting up-and-coming comedians, who are generating a buzz on the London comedy circuit. Nat Luurtsema is a Londonist favourite - half of the staff here have seen her live at least three times, and with good reason. She's silly but thoughtful, scatty but charming, well read, self-deprecating, twee and whimsical, dark and disturbing, and very funny indeed.......

By the time the Edinburgh Festival rolls around, the 2,000 shows on offer will have been proof-read, practised and polished to perfection. But how do the shows get to be so good? We'll tell you but how - by using Londoners as guinea pigs! We jest, of course. The next six weeks are a fantastic time to see brilliant comedians experimenting with new ideas at super-cheap prices. Here's our second week of recommendations for......

The Edinburgh Festival lasts for three weeks, but we Londoners get two months worth of previews with vastly cheaper ticket prices. Therefore, London wins. Take advantage of this epic victory by going to one, some, none or more of the following: Monday 9th - Andrew O'Neill's Totally Spot-On History Of British Industry promises to be packed full of truth and facts as he re-tells the history of this glorious era. There'll be surreal and......

Resonance FM are putting on a days worth of fund-raising this Sunday at the Arts Theatre, near Leicester Square, with afternoon comedy and evening music. Londonist's favourite radio station is always in need of funds, and is run almost exclusively by volunteers, so we'll be going to support the charity just as much as we'll be going to see the acts. In there afternoon, there's a comedy gig with a very strong bill of......

What if god was one of us... Grow up. A letter written by Einstein, dismissing the idea of god and the bible as "pretty childish" has sold for $400,000 at a Bloomsbury auction. We are living in a material world... and Posh and Paris are competing through a tabloid pout marathon to flog their wares across the West End C'mon feel the noise... and map it for DEFRA Keep on movin':Jazzie B gets OBE......

This Saturday might well be your last chance to catch Missed Connections, the supremely heart-warming, twee, and utterly hilarious show by Terry Saunders. Terry is a stand-up storyteller whose gentle, melancholic and spellbinding stories can make you laugh, cry and laugh again, all in one breath. He's also one of the brains behind laughterinoddplaces, which we recommended in the olden days. Londonist is a big fan of Terry Saunders, and so should you be.......

Imagine a style of comedy which combines a love of life with a quick wit, booming voice, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of every single movie that has ever been made, ever. For many years, people would have chased you out of the city for proposing such a ludicrous paradigm. But we've come a long way since the 70s. Thank goodness that, now we live in more enlightened times, one man has dared to bring......

Don't Ever Heckle... is a new column where Londonist interviews some of the most exciting and original comedians currently working on London's live comedy circuit. Don't ever heckle them, because we think they're great. Our second interview is with James Kettle, who in the past few years has taken his bitter, pessimistic anti-humour and frequently disturbing take on life to all the best clubs in London, as well as the Edinburgh Fringe, and even......

Don't Ever Heckle... is a new column where Londonist interviews some of the most exciting and original comedians currently working on London's live comedy circuit. Don't ever heckle them, because we think they're great. As we're massive comedy geeks, we'll be digging deep, asking why they perform, how they write, what inspires them, and why on earth they do it in the first place. To launch this new column, we talked to Gerry Howell,......

Hooray for 4 day weeks! And hooray for many seasonal celebrations. If only it would stop raining we'd be radiant with joy. This week we definitely can't afford to see the glorious New York City Ballet at the Coliseum (up to £95 a ticket!) so we made do with the reviews. Neither can we cover the costs of a bank holiday break away from the city but, hell - why would we want to......

Last night London's Luvvieland came together for their annual award ceremony, the Oliviers. Having received 11 nominations across 10 categories, it looked like being Hairspray's night. And Londonist is happy to confirm what we already knew: the show is a deserved winner of the Best New Musical accolade. In addition, Leanne Jones (Best Actress in a Musical) rocks as the optimistic teen, Tracy Turnblad; Tracie Bennett (Best Supporting Role in a Musical) is similarly......

Back before there was Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, or Meg Ryan and virtually any other male lead, there was Kate Hepburn and Cary Grant, Kate Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Kate Hepburn and – well, you get the idea. Never seen the inimitable Ms Hepburn on the silver screen before? Now’s your chance: she and a host of other sharp, witty, irrepressible, and, of course, gorgeous comedic heroines will......

Subtitled 'An ode to the Hawley Arms' this catchy tune by OllyTheOctopus speculates on the possible causes and fallout from the recent conflagration. How will Kate Moss cope with the loss, and will Quinn's down the road, cope with the load? Pertinent questions, but we're most tickled by the notion that 'Noel Fielding's impractical clothes, stopped him getting to the hose'. A work of minor genius.......

We wanted to promote tomorrow's charity comedy night for War on Want at Shepherds Bush Empire for two reasons. Firstly, because it is going to be a spectacular night, with some remarkable comedians, in aid of a very good cause. And secondly, because their press release contains a line which, lacking as it is in context, had us giggling like children for far longer than is socially acceptable: "Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller, with......

With her comedy partner Joe, Nicko runs the Bad Film Club, a monthly club at the Barbican centre where glorious bad films are watched and laughed at. On Wednesday, the club hosts Jaws: The Revenge (yes, that is the one with a roaring shark who has a personal vendetta). What is this Bad Film Club business all about? It's just a place where likeminded people can gather without shame or the need for explanation......

So, err, yeah. Yessss. Eddie Izzard! That's who I've come to talk to you about today, mmm. He's presenting some of his Work In Progress at the Arts Theatre on Great Newport Street each night at 11:15 between today (Friday 1st February) and Sunday. Is he really? Is he really... When Londonist looked there were still some tickets available from a well known site for Sunday night and you may also be able to......

Words: useful little critters, no? Without them we’d be, well, a lot of things, but most certainly out of a job. From puns to poetry, improv to irony, books to blogs, we pretty much revel in all that language has to offer. But no, we will neither confirm nor deny reports that we’ve stayed home on a Friday night for a heated game of Scrabble. What we will confirm, however, is that we greet......

As we ease out of the austerity, self-denial and penny-pinching of January, so too the arts world comes even further out of its shell. This week sees a whole host of exciting openings. Take your pick; payday's passed and February's just round the corner! Be the first Gilbert and Sullivan's hilarious opera about love, corrupt local government, marriage, executions and heroics, The Mikado comes to the Gielgud Theatre from Wednesday. Alistair McGowan stars as......

The Book Club is dead! Long live The School for Gifted Children! Robin Ince's Book Club, for the unacquainted, was a delightfully ramshackle evening of intellectual mirth and experimentation, which was given a grand farewell in December at the British Museum. Tonight The School for Gifted Children kickstarts the glorious sounding N20 Comedy Festival for show, stories, songs and outright lies in the dinky Studio 68 at Battersea Arts Centre. Robin Ince is in......

We've not done very well on the virtuous January front and seem to have spent all our money and most of our nights out on the lash with a flagrant disregard for propriety and our bank account. We don't mind though because, as usual, there are some excellent free things to do in town this week. Monday: British Asian gangsta folk ska punk is where it's at with the intriguing sounding Barbar Luck at......

Three weeks into the New Year, probably one week until payday and telly's rubbish (except for new CSI), the weather's grey and the detox is wearing thin. Don't give in to those January blues! Here's what can get you out of the house for not a lot of wonga this week. Monday: This is the most depressing day of the year. We've said it before but we're going to say it again because we......

As you all know, Londonist doesn’t just enjoy sarcastically mocking aspects of our fair city. No, far from it – we also like to help people out from time to time. So, we were only too pleased to offer our help when San Francisco-based artist and comedian Marc Horowitz contacted us to assist him in setting up his forthcoming show at the Hayward Gallery. Not one to run from a challenge, Horowitz has agreed......

Two weeks into the New Year and it's important to find things to distract yourself from the grey weather, gym timetables, failing diets and attempts to avoid alcohol. If you're still feeling the pinch post festive season then we've got some excellently cheap things for you to do this week to cheer, edify, inspire and amuse you. Monday: Happy days! The Fonz will be at Forbidden Planet for a book signing between 5-6pm. It's......

One of the most thrilling aspects of live comedy is surely its intimacy. When you watch a big act in a small room, a charming comic can make you believe that they are there just for you, as if the jokes they tell were being told exclusively for your pleasure. There's a new club in town that is trying to go one step further. Anthology is a night in Portabello Green W10 which does......