Comedy Clubs in Scotland
If you're looking for a laugh, then s1play's On Stage section is the best place to find out all the best comedy gigs in Scotland.
Our small country is well-served with comedy clubs, with home-grown laughter-merchants The Stand putting on stand-up, improv and character comedy almost every day in its two clubs in Glasgow and Edinburgh. National chain Jongleurs also has a club in both the capital and the largest city, where you can catch the best of the London circuit up here, three nights a week.
Outwith Glasgow and Edinburgh, there are no dedicated comedy clubs which have stayed the distance, but there are plenty of laughs to be had. Theatres such as The Music Hall in Aberdeen, Eden Court in Inverness, Dundee Repertory Theatre, the Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline, East Kilbride Arts Centre, and Perth Concert Hall all have touring comedians in every season. Theatres such as The Pavilion in Glasgow also attract these shows.
Others, like the Palace Theatre in Kilmarnock and the Harbour Arts Centre in Irvine have regular comedy nights to keep folk chuckling around the year.
Scotland has a long tradition of stand-up comedy. Everyone knows Billy Connolly - but how many people know that other stars of stage and screen started out on the Scottish comedy circuit, including Craig Ferguson, his sister Lynn Ferguson, Forbes Masson and Alan Cumming.
Our renaissance of comedy came in the early 1990s, when The Comedy Club under Blackfriars pub in Glasgow's Merchant City proved a launching pad for the Funny Farm comedy collective, which included such luminaries of the scene as Fred MacAulay, John Gillick, Bruce Morton, Parrot and Phil Kay.
Soon The Stand opened, providing a platform for the talents of Jane Mackay, Susan Calman, Susan Morrison, Raymond Mearns, Paul Sneddon (aka Vladimir McTavish and Bob Doolally) and Irishman Michael Redmond.
And Scotland just kept producing great comedians, with a whole new generation of funny people bringing laughter to our stages, and often to our screens: Frankie Boyle, Craig Hill, Miles Jupp, The Reverend Obadiah Steppenwolf III, Bruce Devlin, Des McLean, Des Clarke, Bruce Fummey, and more. Not to mention some great shows, such as the inestimable and ever-changing Dance, Monkey Boy, Dance.
On top of all that, there are the festivals. The Edinburgh Fringe is arguably the world's biggest collection of comedians - anyone who is anyone has had a Fringe show, and competition is fierce for the erstwhile Perrier Award (now The Eddies). Past winners include Phil Nichol, Laura Solon, Jackson's Way, Demetri Martin, Daniel Kitson, Garth Merenghi, Rich Hall as Otis Lee Crenshaw, Al Murray, Tommy Tiernan and The League of Gentlemen. For the last few years Glasgow, too, has hosted the Glasgow International Comedy Festival, which has attracted big names such as Jimmy Carr and Russell Brand.
So if you're just out for a giggle - s1play is the place to look.
s1play : Comedy
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