5 comedy festivals you should go to (that aren’t Edinburgh Fringe)
What’s this? A little look inside the first ever LMAOnaise newspaper? Yes! Imagine this webpage is page FIVE of a physical newspaper you are holding in your hands. If that feels nice, why not order one now?
Edinburgh Fringe who? Sometimes, we categorically do not know her! Over the next few months, there are plenty of other fringe festivals delivering extremely strong comedy vibes, which you should be booking into your calendars. Here are just a few of our faves:
Machynlleth Comedy Festival
May 3-5th, across Machynlleth, Wales; machcomedyfest.co.uk
You can find most things you want at Mach Fest. It’s a mixture of work-in-progress shows and returning champs from the likes of Alexandra Haddow, John Tothill, Adam Flood, Sikisa, Heidi Regan, Jodie Mitchell and Josh Glanc, plus plenty of the comedians featured throughout the paper: Jin Hao Li, James Trickey, Pravanya Pillay and Sharon Wanjohi for example! The festival takes over the town of Machynlleth for the weekend and there is truly something for all varieties of comedy lovers.
Brighton Fringe
May 2nd-June 2nd, across Brighton; brightonfringe.org
Hundreds of shows across comedy, cabaret, circus, theatre and more on offer at this one. The variety and overall queer feeling to the festival is what makes Brighton Fringe such a good one. One of my personal highlights of recent years is the new comedy showcase hosted by Luke Rollason, which brings together a bunch of the best shows from fresh faces onto the scene, which has even included some now in the paper (Su Mi and Rosalie Minnitt). More great shouts to add to your list include Lou Taylor, Chin Wang, Ruth Hunter, Katie Norris, Jen Ives and Amy Webber.
Margate Fringe Festival
May 23-26th, Tom Thumb Theatre & Olby’s Soul Cafe; linktr.ee/margatefringefestival
We know Margate is cool, but it’s one of the hot up-and-coming comedy destinations now as well. In its second year now, Margate Fringe is a gorgeous boutique festival that has some real big names in only two venues, so no sprinting about. You can catch Alison Spittle, Sophie Duker, Paddy Young, Rob Copland and Kiri Pritchard-McLean among others.
Falmouth Cringe
July 4-7th, across Falmouth; falmouthcringe.com
The most exciting new fringe on the scene, Falmouth Cringe takes over a bunch of venues in the Cornwall town. The line-ups are top notch (thanks in large part I’m sure to comedy programmer Ophelia Francis, who doesn't just have her finger on the pulse of comedy, she IS the pulse.) This year we’ve got Chloe Petts, John Tothill, Yuriko Kotani, Jordan Brookes, Nabil Abdulrashid, and loads more.
ARGComFest
July 5-7th, Shoreditch Town Hall; argcomfest.com
Whether or not you’re heading up to Edinburgh Fringe, ARGComFest — Actually Rather Good Comedy Festival — is a must for Londoners. All the shows are previews but by July they’re pretty close to what you’d get in Edinburgh, so if you dedicate your entire weekend to it, you’d be able to get in maybe an even higher volume of shows than two days at the Fringe, because you have to move a few metres between rooms and not run across an entire uphill city. I saw Leo Reich’s Literally Who Cares?! here for the first time in 2022 (now a global megahit), in the same breath as Nic Sampson, Olga Koch, Rob Auton, Sophie Duker and Erika Ehler. So it’s worth bedding in for the weekend. This year’s line-up includes Ania Magliano, Jordan Brookes, Dee Allum, Abby Wambaugh, Stuart Laws, and Charlie George.
