August 14, 2026 at The Stand 1
A few seconds into Simon Munnery’s self-intro announcement from the backstage green room, we’re all reminded why we’re here. A performer who can get a dozen laughs from a minute long pre-show warning, while not even being present on stage is a beautiful thing. Munnery is a legend of British comedy, a masterful poet of the absurd, capable of the most exquisite aphorisms (’If you laugh it’s a joke, if not it’s an aphorism,’ he informs us.)
In the early 90s and 00s a common comedian’s writing trick was to pick up The Penguin Dictionary of English Idioms, pick a page at random and see if you could turn a common saying on its head. And absolutely no one has ever done it better than Simon Munnery.
Accompanying him this year is Taz, his loyal canine companion, and Mick Moriarty, a bassist who gets a chance to shine on his own halfway through the hour with a haunting song that brings an air of cabaret theatricality to The Stand this afternoon.
Not that Munnery needs it. He’s brought props, jokes, poetry, routines, a short play and a glass of whisky that he’s not drinking. That’s because he’s seven months sober and absolutely thriving.
I’ve seen Simon Munnery dozens of times but this might be the best he’s ever looked and performed. He dons the stage with a prop-studded jacket, a gloriously bushy beard and a walking stick. He lets go of the stick and it clatters to the stage. ‘It’s useless without me,’ he explains with a shrug and a smile. I’ve never seen the man look healthier and it’s honestly exhilarating. He’s sparkling, jaunty and energetic – sobriety really, really suits him.
Taz (his dog) wanders happily among the audience throughout the performance, gathering rubs and crisps, before settling in beneath a chair to watch along with us. Munnery brought her along a couple of years ago and tried to keep her in the green room, ‘But she figured out how to open the door.’
The stage is festooned with England flags that Munnery has freed from lampposts in his hometown, and of course the how and the why of that is entertaining. He barrels through a song about the B660 (a road), ably handles a well-meaning heckler and tells us about a war he’s waging against the ANPR cameras at his local Aldi, while wearing the impressive homemade weapon he’s been using.
He’s written ‘l’esprit d’escalier’ on a flip chart – it’s the frustration of thinking of a perfect comeback when it’s too late to be of use, something he says he experiences a lot. Maybe this gives us an insight into how his comic mind works – an engine of ‘what I should have said there?’ constantly running in the background. He’s only just started, in his sobriety, to be funny in person, though. ‘Apparently I like to make people laugh,’ he says. ‘Who knew?’
Munnery finishes with a timely character piece about a man with a bucket on his head, and his excellent Crucifixion-set miniature play. I’ve perhaps now seen it four or five times, but it hasn’t dulled with the repetition.
Watching him still full of energy after the end of the show, holding court selling limited edition artwork fills me with joy.
See Simon Munnery if you can.
SIMON MUNNERY is at The Stand 1, most days through August at 12.50
Sarah Stringer