The entire capital weeps today, as Londonist presents its final round-up of the week's best Edinburgh Festival previews. You can show your respect by going to these shows and seeing some great comedy at super-cheap prices: Monday 21st: A free gig tonight, from four superlative new comics. In their show Homework for Heroes, they discuss acts of heroism in everyday life, and play with interactive games to create a heart-warming night of comedy. The......

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......

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.......

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,......

We like to think we have a broad range of cultural interests at Londonist. In a day, we can bring you news of a new electro-pop retro psychedelia band playing Camden, a Korean theatre company performing a German play to tango music, an art exhibition that involves bringing your own art and dance performances full of writhing nude, geriatric bodies. So it gave us no end of pleasure to hear of two news items......

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......

Hello Jeff! Ho ho ho and a bottle of rum - it's Christmas time! Happy Saint Jesus Day, to almost all of you! And what an event it is - a time for giving, sharing, and taking; a time for thinking about the past, as well as looking forward to the future, all the while contemplating the here and now; a time of remembrance and joy, coupled with inebriation, rage, and light misogyny. And......

Last full week before Christmas, we expect your bank account's feeling the strain. All that Christmas shopping and partying taking its toll? If you want to make the most of being out and about before Christmas cabin fever and complete exhaustion set in then we're here to help. Monday: Keep the braincells going through silly season. Go to the free lecture at Gresham College about why our society rewards celebrities, fads and fashions and......

With a month of holiday shopping, parties and general merriment in front of you, you’ll probably be in need of a few rest days. Here are a few things to keep you entertained if you fancy a night in. On TV, Londonist likes: Monday, 3 December How London Was Built (ITV2, 20:00-20:30) Who knew there were giant “seemingly unsupported” staircases in the Bank of England? Adam Hart-Davies shows us this very impressive sounding staircase......

Advent is upon us. Hanukkah starts on Wednesday. Office parties are already everywhere. Tis the season to be jolly, jolly, jolly but we know this can be draining, emotionally and financially. Don't let the state of your wallet throw you over the edge. We can't afford to buy tickets to the BFI IMAX all-nighter next weekend and we're not allowed to enter our own competition. But we can do the following splendid things for......

Maxwell's Fullmooners has been running for some time at London's Comedy Store - audiences can expect Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell dressed in a cloak, hip hop dancers, a creepy singer with a ukulele called Lady Carol of the Moon, the 'concierge' Tim Fitzhigham (who we interviewed earlier this year) and a lot of werewolf style howling. The shows start at midnight and have been something of a cult hit. On November 24th an extra......

Greyhound mannequin unveiled at Madame Tussauds. It can run exceptionally fast, especially when placed too close to the central heating. 19 of the 20 worst postcodes for identity fraud are in London. Or is it another town masquerading as London? Single travel fares to be frozen in new year...most commuters know how that feels. Naked rambler cleared. It wouldn't stand up in court. Image courtesy of DICKSDAILY via the Londonist flickr group.......

It's time to stand up, speak out and come together for Feminist Fightback, the annual free activist conference taking place at University of East London for it's second year. Because fighting back is still necessary and feminism is not dead - and sadly, women's rights and gender equality still need protecting and promoting. Representatives from groups like Central American Women's Network, Women in Darfur, Women's Environment Network, Southall Black Sisters, MPs, student union representatives......

Man gets 'stiff sentence' for 'accidentally' sending people pictures of his penis. He thought it would never stand up in court. Great train robber Ronnie Biggs says his life has been wasted. Not at all. Without him, we wouldn't have had that superlative 'Buster' film with Phil Collins. Grandmother dies after being disorientated my mirrors in a shop. Ramsay's treat. Celebrity chef attains his 12th Michelin star. Shortly before being shot, de Menezes alighted......

Fight the temptation to sneak under the duvet tomorrow night - it may be getting dark ever earlier and there's a definite hiding-under-duvet chill in the crisp air but fight! Resist! Protest! Agitate! Agitate: Late at Tate Britain! The first Friday of every month is the special late opening of Tate Britain and there have been some very good themed nights to kick off the weekend in style - the burlesque evening, the village......

In the UK, Joe Rogan is probably best known for playing Joe Garrelli in the sitcom NewsRadio, as a presenter on the American reality show Fear Factor, and as a commentator for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. What us Londoners may not be aware of is that Joe is also a prolific stand-up comedian, gigging regularly to huge audiences around America for over fifteen years. He mixes traditional stand-up with political satire, a dissection of......

A day after possibly the strongest entry for the most risible right-wing attempt at 'humour' since Jim Davidson was allowed near prime time television, Boris Johnson emerged from his summer holidays (it's silly season all year round for him really) and set out his stall for taking on Ken Livingstone next May. And what a stall it is. Thrill to his delight at being able to buy mango juice in newsagents! Listen to his boast......

Two years ago today, four bombs were detonated on London’s public transport system in the morning rush hour, resulting in the deaths of 52 commuters (and four suicide bombers) and injuries to more than 700 others. We all remember that day. We can all tell each other where we were at the time, how close we were to being on one of those trains or that bus, who we knew that actually was caught......

London Pride is back! And what better way to see in the celebrations, than getting to know the brilliant and frankly rather pretty DJ Cautious. She's on the women's stage from 3.40. So, DJ Cautious, What Do You Do In The Real World? I drink tea and make a mess in my bedroom. Sometimes I do the creative concepts and marketing for sustainable design projects. Describe Your Sound To Us: Ooh, funky, happy dancy......

Will the real Buster Crabbe please stand up? And put one of those flippers on each foot up? We were intrigued to discover that the South London Swimming Club will this Sunday morning be hosting a race for the "Buster Crabbe Memorial Cup". That name instantly transported us back to our school holiday mornings, transfixed in front of the televised black and white 1930s adventures of space hero Flash Gordon, embodied by one Clarence......

OK, so this is getting less daily as time goes on. That's because we need you, yes you, to tag more of your Flickr photos with 'Londonist'. Or send something in by email. Think about it. You get the glory of seeing your image on the biggest blog in the whole of the UK*. And then the joys of seeing literally hundreds** of people leave witty comments about your photographic prowess. You could be......

The kind of record-breaking attempt where you balance an egg on your head while performing La Traviata backwards in a vat of custard - Londonist thinks those are pretty lame, on the whole. The kind of record-breaking attempt where you stand up for free speech in the UK while pointing out the ridiculousness of the paranoid laws introduced by the government which curb the right to protest, however - those are the kind of......

We like the Fortnight Club. It takes place in the Camden Head in Angel at 8.45pm on every other Monday and is usually a bill of ten or so professional circuit comedians test driving brand new material that they wouldn't necessarily want to throw straight into their set. Proceedings are greased by Logan Murray's hilarious Ronnie Rigsby character, a pervy "50 years in showbiz" style entertainer, as MC. It's a mere £4 to get......

We have to admit that we've never seen Rocky V. We drew the line after the one where he beat the USSR to a bloody pulp, but that's not to say we don't love Stallone. He has a rough ride for some of his movies, but we give him perhaps a little more rope than we should, for the first Rocky movie (which he wrote) and which still stands up well today. First Blood......

We first saw Caroline Clifford in the final of the Amused Moose new act competition at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, and hers was the best 7 minutes we'd heard all festival. She was also a finalist at So You Think You're Funny 2006. As well as standing up, she draws cartoons. How are you? I’m well thanks – I have a slight pain in my left buttock, I don’t *think* it’s cancer although......