Margaret Cho, London
There are lots of different ways that comedians use filth. Sometimes it’s just about shock: thinking of the worst thing you can possibly say and challenging your audience to either laugh at it or walk out. Other times (as with a performer such as Katherine Ryan or Sarah Silverman) it’s a way of creating a comic juxtaposition, getting bigger laughs from the fact a seemingly innocent-looking person is coming out with a tirade of smut. Korean-American Margaret Cho has another approach. Her extraordinarily explicit material – which features frequent and brutally frank descriptions of her own vagina and anus as well as discussions of sex acts of all kinds – functions as a kind of rallying call for her audience. Cho is a passionate LGBT campaigner (she herself sleeps with men and women, and has described herself as a “fag hag” thanks to her fondness for gay men) and the wildness of her act feels like a claiming of comedy space for those who might otherwise feel excluded by the beery heterosexuality of a Saturday night club gig.
Leicester Square Theatre, WC2, Tue to 20 Dec
Jen Brister, Nottingham
Jen Brister has long been a spiky and cynical presence on the stand-up scene. She’s one of those comics whose stock-in-trade is a kind of unsurprised pessimism, never allowing herself to get too delighted by good news because there’s always some fresh disappointment around the corner. But these days, her negativity is under sustained attack from some seismic life changes: mainly caused by becoming a mother (although, as she finds herself wearily and repeatedly pointing out, it’s her partner who did the giving birth bit). Brister has always been able to generate great comic material out of the reactions of others to her sexuality, and this new arrival has prompted even more scope for misapprehensions and veiled prejudice. Her other reliable go-to for laughs is her own mum. Brister has a heavily accented Spanish mother and her larger-than-life impersonations are always a treat.
Sara Pascoe’s Christmas Assembly, London
With Andy Parsons having left Mock The Week, there’s a potential hole in its lineup of regulars, and industry insiders are already speculating that Sara Pascoe may be the one to fill it. Certainly, her recent television appearances have caught the eye. Pascoe is one of a number of young comedians to take politics extremely seriously. A fervent supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, she has always been willing to fly flags for a number of causes, such as feminism, transgender rights and inequalities of seemingly every stamp. This idealism is very much of a piece with her approach to comedy; listening to her routines, you get the impression of a hugely thoughtful and sensitive person, trying to logically work out why the world is a crueller place than it should be. However, these shows – which feature festive stories and songs – will put an emphasis on celebration rather than campaigning.
