Shows that delight in flouting conventions, like Brookes’s Body of Work, make us question our expectations of standup – including whether it should all be funny

Standup Nick Coyle’s new show Queen of Wolves takes a Victorian governess on a terrifying journey – and proves how humour and horror work in similar ways

One act offers Badults-style sketches, the other does mindbending meta-gags. Both bring new shows to a station that specialises in self-satisfied comedy

He’s a likable performer capitalising on the idea that most of his fellow comedians are lefties. So is Norcott’s show Conswervative more wind-up than battle cry?

The comic has been accused of transphobia after riffing about Caitlyn Jenner in his standup show. So does giving him a favourable review endorse those gags?

The comic who presented a TV series on the rise of the far right is back with a show that combines goofballery with cultural commentary

A white coat is often a sign of funny bones, as periodic outbreaks of medically trained comedians demonstrate

As suppers are held for Robert Burns’ birthday, here’s a toast to the standups of Scotland whose attitudes and accents are perfectly suited to comedy

Gold TV has polled the professionals about their favourite comedy. But even the funniest of the funny can’t easily be reduced to scenes and one-liners

A crack cast of millennial comics deliver social satire – amid the poo jokes and spoof songs – in an alt-panto created by Liam Williams and Daran Johnson

For more than 40 years, Barry Crimmins has honed his political skewering of the American dream to a fine art

The UK Jewish Comedy festival’s salute to the Borscht Belt comedy of Woody Allen and Joan Rivers is poised awkwardly between tribute and parody

In her podcast, Cariad Lloyd talks to other comics about death, a subject that standups rarely deal with directly on stage

NextUp will stream live comedy sets for a low subscription fee. Standups are excited, and will share 50% of the income – but will the new service attract a big enough audience to succeed?

The Canadian standup’s Radio 4 show expertly splices comedy, opinion and enlightenment to explore millennial gender fluidity and sex

The innovative outfit that cultivated talents such as Tim Key and Claudia O’Doherty is no more. So why, during this boom time for comedy, did it fail?

A new film blurs fiction and reality with its tale of an aspiring comic. It asks to what extent you can study to become funny – or if you’re just born that way