It’s reasonable to expect not to know anything about what the stand-up comic is going to say before one gets to the gig. John-Luke Roberts, however, goes one step further, with a preamble about what stand-up comedy is in the first place. It’s too much of a spoiler, alas, to regurgitate it all here, but what it doesn’t mean, in Roberts’ worldview, is picking on people in the front row, or indeed in any row, such that my usual advice to sit in the front row at your own risk goes out the window.
Much of the material is comprised of unexpected twists – he is, perhaps unusually, supportive of babies screaming and hollering on an aeroplane, an irrational response, as it were, to an irrational situation. Just as a theatrical play set in a utopian environment runs the risk of being dull, so it is that Roberts’ comedy storytelling finds much heart and rhythm in – well, not quite dystopia, but scenarios unpleasant enough to warrant name-dropping ‘death’ and ‘Dignitas’.
An older, wiser reviewer once told me that if I were to ever struggle for something to say about a show, I should say something about how it explores the unpredictability of the human condition (provided, of course, that is something a show actually does). Except this was a show that really did put the human condition front and centre. A recent health scare is cause for a long section spent mining an inpatient hospital stay for anecdotes and punchlines galore. Punctuated with poetry – not all of which made sense to me (my bad, I suppose) – Roberts enjoyed a good rapport with the audience.
The observational humour was particularly delightful in this briskly paced show, a refreshingly warm and pleasant departure from the aggressive and sweary nature that stand-up comedy at the Fringe can sometimes be.
Review by Chris Omaweng
JLR returns with his first new show in four years. Hilarious stand-up about the human condition, nearly dying and what it’s like to have an endoscopy on Remembrance Sunday at exactly 11am. Hilarious, though, that’s the main thing. Some poems too. Aiming for at least five-to-six laughs a minute, so about three hundred total which is pretty good actually. Big accessible laughs too, while not selling out on my alternative roots. Come on, you’ll like it.
JOHN-LUKE ROBERTS: WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I RUN ABOUT, TALKING
Monkey Barrel at the Edinburgh Fringe
5 to 30 August (not 18 August) 2026
