Your favorite stand-up comedian

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Right, UK girl here mentioning the cream of British comedy who all need to be YouTube'd now:

Michael McIntyre
- Hilarious. If he doesn't make you laugh, see a doctor.
John Bishop
- The ordinary boy from Liverpool. Brilliant.
Milton Jones
- The king of one-liners. Quietly funny. Amazing on panel shows.
Terry Alderton
- Absolutely mental, but brilliant once you get into him.
Jack Whitehall
- Young comedy talent. Look up his joke about being grade eight on recorder. Cracked me up.
Kevin Bridges
- Scottish guy who has a great routine about 'empties' involving Americans.
Jimoein
- Irish. Hilarious.
Jason Byrne
- Irish people just are funny.
Alan Carr
- Tooth Fairy DVD needs buying. The bit about telling his football mad dad he was doing a creative arts degree is classic.
Russell Howard
- Look about 15, and has an amazing TV show called Russell Howard's Good News that also needs watching, the best thing on BBC 3.
Sarah Millican
- Geordie comedian who takes a while to get into, but once you get into her way, she's brilliant.
Noel Fielding
- Very surreal comedian who is beyond mental, and also on drugs, but still cool.

The UK has the funniest comedians ever. Sorry, but it's true. The only comedian who would make me turn the TV off, however, is a guy called Frankie Boyle. He makes horrible jokes about people with disabilities and racist stuff too. Don't go near him.

Frankie Boyle stole his entire act from Jerry Sadowitz, another Scotish commedian who's been performing 20 years before him.
As for the others in your list, I'd have more fun stabbing myself.

Comedians like George Carlin, Stewart Lee, Bill Hicks, etc. sort of irritate me. They know their audience's views, and then pander to their audience's views instead of actually being funny. I mean, I agree with a lot of stuff that they say, but it's not exactly comedy, is it? More like some sort of leftie church.

Ricky Gervais, on the other hand, is the funniest person in human history. He is the only person who can make me laugh just by laughing at his own jokes.

it was a 3-way tie between buddy hackett, redd foxx and pete barbutti. they never failed to make me roll on the floor, laughing like a fool.

Here's a few I've seen live:

Ross Noble - I think hubby and I are groupies, go to see him every year
Stewart Francis - king of the one liners (I see Milton Jones may have this title), saw him a few weeks ago and had a good chuckle
Sean Lock - first time was best thing I'd ever seen, second time, he bombed
Ardal O'Hanlon - good but a little out of his depth, maybe more relaxed these days
Kevin Bridges - pure dead brilliant, so he is, by the way! knew he'd go far the first time we saw him, when he was unknown
Daniel Sloss - very good and bound to go far, not afraid to talk about intimate stuff
Richard Herring - very fast paced, hilarious and intelligent

We're going to see Simon Amstell next month.

wow, it's great to see so many of my favourite stand up's get mentioned time and time again in this thread. I post on a few NT forums and these types of threads get very different answers on there.

I'm a huge fan of the art of stand up comedy and despite how difficult it would be for me I've often toyed with the idea of giving it a go. I think it's something to do with the blurred line between a comedian's on stage personality and real life personality which really strikes a chord with me. It feels similar to how I try and project a different, constantly overanalysed and self-censored version of myself around other people.

If I had to pick an all time favourite stand up it would have to be the late George Carlin. He was closer to a poet than a comedian and had one of the most confident commands of language I've ever seen. I find myself constantly re-watching his shows every few months, and every time it inspires me.

Stewart Lee is another comedian I rate on almost god-like levels. He really is an artist when it comes to his craft and I feel he's done more to evolve the genre of stand up in his career than any comedian since the 'Holy Trinity' (Carlin, Pryor & Bruce). You'll struggle to find a more intelligent stand up. Oh, and he also went to the same school as me, which always makes me feel really connected to stories he tells about growing up.

I tend to prefer British & Australian stand up's to American ones, and I've often been puzzled by the differences between the two styles. I've found it quite tough to pin down and identify (although non visual abstract concepts are always a struggle), but I don't think it's unfair to describe a lot of American stand up as lacking the subtly and multiple layers of a lot of UK comedy. I don't think this is the comedians fault I've actually heard many American comics express frustration at how they have to spell everything out for their audiences incase anyone (or the media) fails to identify irony and takes offence. This isnt to say that 'American stand up isnt as good as UK stand up', as the best American stand ups blow some of the best British stand up's out the water, and it is of corse and innately American art form, but I guess the concepts & world-view of a lot of British stand up is more inline with my way of thinking.

If I start talking about this in any more depth I'm worried I'll 'zone in' and spend the whole day typing this out so I'll just finish off with a list of stand up comedians worth watching;

Doug Stanhope
Daniel Kitson
Steven Wright
Mitch Hedburg
Milton Jones
Richard Herring
Robin Ince
Bo Burnham
Stephen Lynch
Kevin Smith (not quite a stand up but his Q&A talks are ridiculously watchable)
Dylan Moran
Brendon Burns
Jim Jeffries
Reginald D. Hunter
The Boy with Tape on his Face (amazing mime)
John Oliver
Dave Gorman
Marcus Brigstock
Norman Lovett
Tim Vine


I'm blatantly forgetting a load so I'll probably post again at some point.

[youtube] Mod. edit: video redacted because of swearing. [/youtube]

Just in from Doug Stanhope's show at Hammersmith Apollo. The last America is actually better 10 min rant took balls. Probably the best I've ever heard from him. Brilliant.

I really do need to watch Stanhope live, I don't think I've ever seen him do a bad show. He makes bitterness hilarious, which is no mean feat! He reminds me of the drunken lovechild of George Carlin & Johnny Vegas.

I'm not much into stand-up comedy. I don't handle insult humor very well.

The late Andy Kaufman.
And Jeff Dunham, because he makes my little girl laugh.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

^ The comedian who makes my little girl laugh is Harry Hill.

^ He's very famous in the UK, but I doubt he's known elsewhere, except maybe Ireland. I've never heard of Jeff Dunham.