The Udderbelly E4 Comedy Festival

Since 2009, the conservative surroundings of the South Bank with its Royal Festival Hall and Hayward Gallery have had a colourful and unwieldy neighbour drop in each year. A giant purple upside-down cow has taken up residence near the home of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Udderbelly E4 Comedy Festival is the closest thing that London has to a comedy festival and given that the city is such an important hub of the comedy world, it’s strange that the city has gone so long without one.

The Udderbelly E4 Comedy Festival showcases a burgeoning collection of the best stand-ups, sketch acts and improvisers that you may have seen either on television or in a poorly-lit back room of a dingy pub. It is the chance to see comedians perform new material in preparation for Edinburgh as well as discovering new acts.

My tips for the latter are Abadonman (29 April) and Daniel Sloss. Abandoman are the former winners of the prestigious Hackney Empire New Act competition. They are an improvised hip-hop duo who are able to riff on any suggestions put to them by the audience and create deliriously good rap-based comedy.

Not many people can say that they spent their teenage years writing for Mock The Week but Daniel Sloss is one of them. His show My Generation won many a fevered review up in Edinburgh last year and he will be performing it on 8 May.

For anyone concerned that a comedy festival will be home to a procession of offensive material, there is little need to panic. Amongst the frivolities, you will find such family-friendly performers such as Barry Cryer (17 July), a comedy stalwart who proves that you don’t need a succession of dick jokes to get an audience howling with laughter.

Among the rest of the acts performing, you’ll be unlikely to find the superstars of comedy such as Michael McIntyre, John Bishop and Shappi Khorsandi. However, this is a good thing as you can come across excellent comedians who have a unique perspective on the world and who are more suited to the freedom of live performing rather than the straitened environment of television.

My own personal picks would be Glenn Wool (16 July), a gregarious Canadian who is happy to harangue the idiotic, the despotic and the lunatic elements in today’s world.

However, given the scope of the festival, which stretches over three months, the best thing to do is to take a punt on someone unknown and go in with an open mind.

The Udderbelly E4 Comedy Festival is currently running, going on until 17 July at:

The Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road
Waterloo
SE1 8XX

Tel: 0844 545 8282

Image by “Debs” courtesy of Flickr