Items20The creator’s order
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Billy ConnollyBorn 24 Nov 1942An Audience with Billy Connolly captures the pleasure of a storyteller who appears happy to follow a diversion without losing the room. The 1985 special moves through recollections and responses to its celebrity audience, with changes of voice and physical detail making a remembered encounter…0i - 2
Dave Allen (comedian)Born 6 Jul 1936Allen’s routine about teaching a child to tell the time turns a supposedly simple explanation into an extended argument with adult logic. The child’s perspective gives him a consistent way to question each new rule, allowing the confusion to build rather than resetting for an unrelated joke. Look…0i - 3
Daniel KitsonBorn 2 Jul 1977It’s Always Right Now, Until It’s Later tells one life forwards and another backwards, making the order of events central to its effect. Kitson uses the duration of a theatrical monologue to change what an ordinary moment means once its surroundings are revealed. Begin with this work for a…0i - 4
James AcasterBorn 9 Jan 1985Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 gives Acaster space to turn apparently separate memories and grievances into a much longer account. The childhood road-trip material provides a good entry point before taking on the complete show. Watch how he can pause the main narrative to examine one reaction, then…0i - 5
Daniel SlossBorn 11 Sept 1990Jigsaw uses an account of relationships and an extended puzzle analogy to question the assumption that being coupled is automatically better than being single. Sloss allows the argument to develop through anecdote before making its wider implications explicit. Start with the whole special, because…0i - 6
Bridget ChristieBorn 17 Aug 1971Who Am I? uses midlife and menopause to ask what happens when a familiar sense of identity becomes unreliable. Christie’s apparently scattered frustrations are arranged into a sustained comic examination of attention, expectations and the visibility of older women. Start with the full show and…0i - 7
Sarah KendallBorn 3 Aug 1976A Day in October centres on school, a bullied classmate and an event at a beach whose effects spread through the people around it. Kendall makes the relationship between memory and invention part of the story’s interest, rather than asking the audience to treat every detail as documentary fact.…0 - 8
Spalding GrayBorn 5 Jun 1941Swimming to Cambodia sits at the boundary of comic monologue, memoir and theatre. Gray begins with his small role in The Killing Fields and moves through filmmaking, personal experience and the history surrounding the production. Jonathan Demme’s filmed version makes a desk-bound performance…0i - 9
Trevor NoahBorn 20 Feb 1984Son of Patricia includes Noah’s account of meeting Barack Obama, a useful example of building an encounter through anticipation, imagined expectations and a final conversational turn. His changes of voice help separate the participants while preserving the narrator’s point of view. Begin with that…0i - 10
Eddie IzzardDress to Kill moves through history, religion and film with the air of a mind discovering its own next thought. The longer film passages, including The Great Escape, show how Izzard builds little performed scenes inside a larger verbal journey. Start with the complete recording to hear how subjects…0i
