october, 2026
16oct(oct 16)7:00 pm18(oct 18)7:30 pm
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Event Details
Aldeburgh Comedy Weekend
Friday 16th – Sunday 18th October 2026
Following its triumphant launch in 2025, the Aldeburgh Comedy Weekend is back to bring you more star-studded joy and laughter. We have stand-up from Jack Dee, Ed Byrne, Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Mark Watson. The incomparable Jo Brand will be in conversation with Clive Anderson, while this year’s Lunchtime Achievement Award goes to John Lloyd, producer of Blackadder, Spitting Image and QI. Sofie Hagen, born in Denmark but relatable everywhere, is in our Have I Got New For You slot. Finally, there’s nothing like a dame, so don’t miss Dame Joanna Lumley choosing her favourite comedy film clips at the Aldeburgh Cinema.
Jack Dee: Jack’s Joke Show
Friday 16th October, 7pm
Jack’s dry humour and deadpan delivery have delighted us for thirty-five years. His tv career began in 1991 with Channel 4’s The Jack Dee Show and he’s gone on to feature in many acclaimed tv comedies, including the BBC2 sitcom Lead Balloon (which he co-wrote) and the hit ITV Show, Bad Move. In 2004, he was nominated for a BAFTA for Jack Dee Live At The Apollo. Five years later, he replaced Humphrey Lyttelton as chairman of the much-loved Radio 4 ‘antidote to panel games’, I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, so he’s now well on his way to being a National Treasure. (He’s still too young.) He also hosted the hugely popular The Apprentice: You’re Hired, and The Apprentice: You’re Fired (BBC2). We’re thrilled we’ve hired him to launch our Comedy Weekend. In the first half, he’ll do stand-up, then after the interval he’ll give us a generous taster from his new show, Jack’s Joke Show. Jokes and funny anecdotes have intrigued him for as long as he can remember, so he’ll be sharing the influences that have shaped his comedy career. It’s a nostalgic treat he promotes with the unforgettable selling point: ‘Guaranteed no new material’.
Tickets £30 available HERE
Ed Byrne Live
Friday 16th October, 10pm
Ed’s many tv appearances include hosting Live At The Apollo, being a regular panellist on Mock The Week, QI and Have I Got News For You, and taking part in Celebrity Mastermind and Celebrity Pointless. Go to YouTube and watch him at the Melbourne International Festival (2024), and you’ll see immediately that he’s a master of observational comedy. The most famous comedian ever to have studied Horticulture at the University of Strathclyde, Ed’s been a guest on The Graham Norton Show six times, so he knows how to sit back and join in the laughter. Now it’s your turn. This is your chance to see a comedian more used to playing venues six times the size of the Aldeburgh Jubilee Hall. In the words of The Scotsman, ‘It’s rare for a comic to merit the word ‘masterful’ but in this case it is no overstatement’, while Edinburgh Evening News described him as, ‘A great comedian making the simple sublime’. Let’s leave the last word to The Times: ‘This is just glorious – full of gnarly little joy pockets’. Little? Ed’s joy pockets are big enough for all of us.
Tickets £25 available HERE
Sofie Hagen: I Think Some Of This Is My Fault
Saturday 17th October, 12pm
Sofie’s new to Aldeburgh so we’ve created a special Have I Got New For You slot in her honour. She’s from Denmark but learned English at the age of four, ‘just so I could go to Aldeburgh in 2026 and do stand-up’. Back in 2015, she won Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with her show Bubblewrap – which Brian Logan of The Guardian called ‘compelling and beautifully constructed’. Since then, she’s gone from strength to strength, appearing at Festivals all over the world, including Melbourne, Montreal, Johannesburg and Berlin, and on tv for Netflix, BBC, and Comedy Central. She’s also gained a great reputation as a podcaster. She’s the creator and host of the very successful Who Hurt You? – intimate, and funny conversations about why we are the way we are, with guests including Aisling Bea and Katherine Ryan. Sofie’s always tried to do the right thing, but in this show she asks herself the big question: Did I do the right thing or not? Sofie’s funny, fresh, thoughtful and endearing. Don’t miss her.
Tickets £20 available HERE
Mark Watson: Before It Overtakes Us
Saturday 17th October, 3pm
Radio 4 favourite, novelist, quizzer, stand-up, comedy writer, Taskmaster cheeky text icon – Mark Watson is the nation’s favourite comedy polymath. Who else has performed shows on a ferry, from a stream, on a train, and in a vaccination queue? Or completed a Comedy Marathon by performing non-stop for twenty-four hours? His stint at the Comedy Weekend is a mere sprint but, as Chortle said, ‘An hour or two of our limited span on Earth in his uplifting, witty company is time excellently spent.’ In Before It Overtakes Us, he’ll be pondering the uncertain future facing humanity, the worst word he’s ever said in public and – of course – the current state of the UK sausage industry. You’ll probably recognise Mark from Mock The Week, Celebrity Pointless, Have I Got News For You, Would I Lie to You?, Live At The Apollo and QI. His Radio 4 series are myriad – including Mark Watson Makes The World Substantially Better, in which he looked at the human condition through the prism of the Seven Deadly Sins (and a few Virtues) and Mark Watson Talks A Bit About Life assisted by long-time associates Tim Key and Tom Basden.
Tickets £25 available HERE
Good Evening, Jo Brand
Hosted by Clive Anderson
Saturday 17th October, 7pm
Jo was a pioneer. Britain just didn’t have female stand-ups when she and Victoria Wood started out; and, unlike Victoria, Jo couldn’t get any respite by sitting down at the piano. Famously a psychiatric nurse before she became a comedian, her poise under pressure from hecklers and blokes was fabulous – she could deal with anyone, and she did. TV soon followed: Friday Night Live, Have I Got News For You, Would I Lie To You, a guest appearance on Absolutely Fabulous, a ghost (sic) appearance in A Christmas Carole, and nine series of Great British Bake-Off. She was also the star and co-writer of Getting On, the award-winning series set in a geriatric ward, for which she won a BAFTA, and the feature film The More You Ignore Me (based on her novel), which the Daily Telegraph called ‘an appealing bitter-sweetly funny tale’. In conversation with Clive Anderson, she’ll be celebrating forty years in comedy, and taking questions from you. Forty years of being humane and funny and coping with marriage, parenting, and ageing. As she herself says, in her inimitable way: ‘I’m happily married. Unfortunately he’s not’.
CLIVE ANDERSON
Clive Anderson deserves an Aldeburgh Loyalty Card. In 2023, he brought his one-man show Me, Macbeth & I to the Jubilee Hall, while at last year’s Comedy Weekend he interviewed Alison Steadman. Long-term host of Radio 4’s Loose Ends, his lightning wit and spontaneity led to many unforgettable encounters on his tv talk shows. (Just ask Jeffrey Archer, Barry Gibb and Cher.) Clive won a British Comedy Award as Best Entertainment Presenter for Whose Line Is It Anyway, and has crossed tv paths with Jo Brand many times, as fellow guests on Have I Got News For You and QI.
Tickets: £30 available HERE
A Lunchtime Achievement Award: John Lloyd
Hosted by Jon Canter
Sponsored by The Suffolk
Sunday 18th October, 12pm
Legendary comedy producer John Lloyd has won more BAFTAs than anyone except Dame Judi Dench. But this is his first Lunchtime Achievement Award. We’ll be honouring Not The Nine O’Clock News, Blackadder, Spitting Image, and QI, all of which John originated. On radio, he founded The News Huddlines, Quote…Unquote, and The News Quiz (now in its 49th year), and produced the pilot of To The Manor Born, which went on to huge tv success; and, for seventeen series, he hosted Radio 4’s The Museum of Curiosity, which won the 2016 International Rose D’Or for the world’s best radio talk show. John directed many TV ads – notably the Barclaycard series that become the Johnny English movie franchise – and wrote and directed Genesis: Land of Confusion, which won a Grammy and was No 1 in MTV’s Greatest Music Videos of All Time. John’s writing credits include the first series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with Douglas Adams, and over 30 books (including The Meaning of Liff with Douglas, still in print after 42 years). His one-man shows, Liff of QI (2013) and Emperor of the Prawns (2015), sold out at the Edinburgh Fringe.
JON CANTER
Comedy writer, playwright and novelist Jon Canter co-founded the Aldeburgh Comedy Weekend, and has lived in the town for over thirty years. His Radio 4 comedy Believe It, starring Richard Wilson, won Best Scripted Comedy at the BBC Audio Awards. Last year’s Weekend featured the stage premiere of his tragi-comic play A Short Gentleman, based on his novel, and starring Michael Fenton Stevens. With John Lloyd, his contemporary in the Cambridge Footlights, he co-wrote Afterliff – The New Dictionary Of Things There Should Be Words For.
Tickets: £20 available HERE
Kiri Pritchard-McLean Live
Sunday 18th October, 3pm
Kiri is a comedy star bringing charisma, fizzing comic energy and acutely observed storytelling to every show she does. Her previous show Peacock, in which she describes her journey to becoming a foster parent, received multiple 5-star reviews. It blended her signature sardonic, no-nonsense humour with moving social commentary . (She also wore a dazzling sequinned peacock jumpsuit for the tour.) Kiri has appeared on many of the UK’s most popular entertainment shows, including Have I Got News For You, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, QI, Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, and Live At The Apollo, which she hosted. Kiri’s comedy tackles thorny subjects with humour and grace, often in a deeply personal way. You may well have heard her on radio – Kiri has her own weekly show on BBC Radio Wales, and she regularly co-hosts Loose Ends. She was also the host of Newsjack and has guest-hosted The News Quiz. Kiri also hosts her own Radio 4 panel show, Best Medicine, which was commissioned for a second series – both series are now available on BBC Sounds. An opportunity to see a rising star up close and personal, and possibly in a sequinned peacock jumpsuit.
Tickets: £25 available HERE
Aldeburgh Cinema: Desert Island Comedy Flicks with Dame Joanna Lumley
Hosted by Clive Tulloh
Sunday 18th October, 5.30pm
Actress, activist, presenter and author, Joanna Lumley’s come a long way since her early film role in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, in which she was credited simply as ‘The English Girl’. Made a Dame for her services to drama, entertainment and charity, she’s now an English Woman admired everywhere for her eloquence, wit and poise. Post Bond-Girl, she went on to appear in Curse Of The Pink Panther, Shirley Valentine, James And The Giant Peach, and The Wolf Of Wall Street. On tv she went from Purdey in The New Avengers, and Sapphire in Sapphire And Steel, to the immortal Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous, for which she was awarded two BAFTAS. She re-united with Jennifer Saunders for Jam & Jerusalem and then with Saunders and Lucy Punch for the current big hit, Amandaland. (She and Punch first met when they played stepmother and daughter in the Cinderella satire, Ella Enchanted.) At the Aldeburgh Cinema she’ll be choosing clips from her favourite comedy films in Desert Island Comedy Flicks, a variant on the long-running Desert Island Flicks strand, which has featured Lenny Henry, Richard Curtis & Emma Freud, and Michael Palin.
CLIVE TULLOH
TV producer Clive Tulloh and Joanna Lumley are no strangers to Desert Islands. For the sake of a TV show, Clive once marooned her on just such an Island, where she had to live alone for ten days (occasionally visited by Tulloh for updates). Since then, they’ve made over thirty hours of travel documentaries together. Shortly after leaving Aldeburgh, they’ll be heading to South America for their new ITV series, Joanna Lumley’s Argentina.
Tickets: £30 (£25 Friends of Aldeburgh Cinema) available through the Aldeburgh Cinema box office HERE or by phoning the Aldeburgh Cinema on 01728 454 884.
Tickets available through the links above, by phoning 01728 454022, or in person Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 10-12pm at the AJH corner office.