As its acts make the weary trek up to Edinburgh, the Oxford Comedy Fest wraps up for another year, and for its last audience in the Trinity Beer Cellar, the closing acts brought things to a happy, if a little rough-around-the-edges, denouement. It’s a first trip to the cellar for this reviewer, and one I hope to repeat, lending things a more underground, informal feel that benefited the work-in-progress nature of each hour (and kept plenty well-oiled by Trinity’s hardworking bar staff).

Don’t sip those beers too loudly though, because we kick off with Dr. Jane Gregory and Steve Hall’s If You Loved Me, You’d Breathe Quietly. Gregory has been diagnosed with misophonia, a strong aversion to repetitive sounds like chewing, tapping or rustling - a tricky tightrope to walk when married to someone who, to quote their son, “eats like a disgusting pig” (Hall). The strings are more visible for this hour, with the two holding scripts throughout, but the easy back-and-forth between the pair already shines through; part of the fun is watching Hall ad-lib a risky line or groanworthy pun and search Gregory’s face for her reaction.

At the core of the show is an appeal to hear other people’s perspectives in order to inform your own, and the pair’s different styles of comedy play well off each other to get that across. They both definitely get pretty graphic at points, like Hall describing how one aspect of their newborn son’s anatomy got him labelled ‘Spacehopper’ among the midwives, or a line about Gregory’s vagina that she probably wouldn’t have included had she known her research students would be in attendance.

But Gregory’s more personal, confessional delivery adds to the earnestness of her story, as she explains what led to her diagnosis, how to manage it, and the preconceptions and misunderstandings she’s encountered (including, sometimes, from herself). Hall’s more barbed, satirical style, meanwhile, is perfect for skewering the absurd societal roadblocks people with conditions like Gregory’s experience; right-wing pundits who insist “you wouldn’t have misophonia during the Blitz” (tell that to Churchill); talk shows that drive away the curious by deliberately playing triggering sounds when discussing misophonia;or an underfunded NHS that’s led to a reliance on self-diagnosis in order to gain answers.

Comedy is often a mean place, and there are many commentators today longing for a time when it was meaner. But much of comedy is at its core about subverting expectations, something that we also have to do if we’re ever going to practice empathy well. From Hall’s incorrect diagnosis of an audience member with a beeping bag to Gregory’s reevaluation of how to manage her symptoms after listening to her kids, it’s the ways people can surprise you that make you move through the world with more sensitivity, even as they make you laugh - whatever this hour grows into, it’s a great message to impart, and one that’s already connecting with an audience that hadn’t yet put a name to their experience.

Sara Barron in the second-half is, well, less heartwarming - and that is not a complaint. Her gleefully foul-mouthed set is packed with quicksilver wit, scarily perceptive crowdwork and some absolutely cracking writing. It’s a shame Edinburgh will be retiring its Funniest Joke of the Fringe competition this year, because “what’s your husband’s favourite position? Foetal.”, blows a lot of recent winners out of the water.

Barron dives right into the inky depths of dark humour and rarely, if ever, needs to come up for air. Highlights include her toxic codependent relationship with Netflix’s ‘Because You Watched’ algorithm, a skit that pokes fun at the thorny ethics of enjoying true crime while never coming off holier-than-thou - we’re all in the gutter here. So too with her humble suggestion of a second lanyard to go alongside the Hidden Disabilities sunflower, the ‘c*nt’ lanyard’, since, despite what certain disgraced authors and celebrity chefs would have you believe, being the former is not an excuse for the latter.

There were moments where I thought we could be leaning into more conventional territory; the ‘competent wife putting up with slightly gormless husband’ schtick is something that could get old fast in the wrong hands. It’s testament to the strength of Barron’s writing that she can take this fairly established trope and make it fizz, bonding with the couples in the crowd with the worldly, no-nonsense delivery of a bartender everyone can share their troubles with.

In its current form, it’s petering off a little at the end, but what’s there is gold; it just needs to be mined a little further. My only advice, as the second row quickly discovered - maybe don’t make this one a family trip.

That’s it for this year’s Oxford Comedy Festival - whether you’re following the acts up to Edinburgh or waiting for next July to roll around, keep supporting local comedy wherever you find it! Check out QED’s website for their regular events.

As the great African-American comedians well know, racial stereotypes have always proved an endlessly rich comedic seam to mine. Not only can you ridicule the racists who subscribe to them, but, especially if you are from the ethnic group under the microscope yourself, you can cash in on them as well. Comedy is all about subverting expectations, and the more taboo those expectations, the more thrilling the subversion (although, to be fair, he already had me at “Death to the”).

As the title suggests, Hasan jumps straight into this minefield from the word go . “I’m going to say a phrase,” he tells us “and, if you know the response, you chant it back it me. I’ll be very impressed if anyone knows it.” Of course, the vast majority correctly answered “Wa alaykum as-salaam” to his “salaam alaykum.”

“Mash’allah!” he cried. “You know what that means? It means the Islamification of England is surpassing our greatest expectations!”

Chuffed that googling “Death to the West” now brings up his show as the second result (after Pat Buchanan’s book ‘the Death of the West’ since you ask), he suggests that ISIS are now jealous of his search optimisation skills (“have we been shadow banned or something?” they wonder).

As the set progresses, however, it grows into something much more subtle and poignant, as we are introduced to the wit and wisdom of his Iraqi father, the naivety and generosity of his favourite uncle, and the difficulties of growing up Iraqi in Britain during the Iraq war. Real trauma and heartache are unearthed, and a Fanon-lite rundown of the double-bind faced by the immigrant whose efforts at assimilation are never enough to achieve the desired recognition, but more than enough to make him a stranger to himself.

He reflects at the end that stand-up can be a form of therapy and that turning his most difficult moments into jokes is an empowering process. That is all true - but it’s also highly entertaining to watch. It’s not easy to balance meaningful commentary with frequent humour without either veering into something that is no longer comedy on the one hand or that ends up trivialising your subject matter on the other. But Hasan manages to get the balance just right.

Some of the jokes absolutely kill it (METAPHORICALLY MI5, keep your hair on!) and the show is also educational at times (I did not know about the world’s biggest graveyard).

It doesn’t always land well; some of the jokes about Iran are a bit off-key and should be ditched in the humble opinion of this writer. But generally he traverses this tricky territory with wit and skill. Genuinely thought-provoking, always funny and sometimes hilarious, this is definitely one to watch!

Parenting teens in times of genocide doesn’t sound like a very funny topic for a stand-up show. But a good comedian can render any source material hilarious, and works with whatever life throws at them. And Esther Manito is a great comedian.

Like some kind of twisted lovechild of Rik Mayall and Leila Khaled, she channels a delightfully manic energy into a fiery and passionate response to life’s quotidian disappointments. And like all great art, what really makes her soar are the extended diatribes spitting out glorious nuggets of precisely-aimed venom.

To be fair, these are used quite sparingly, with plenty of immersive scene-setting in the build-ups. Manito is a master storyteller, hilariously relaying the awkward misunderstandings, exasperating dialogues and petty (and not-so-petty) iniquities of daily life.

Existing fans of Manito’s shows will already be familiar with her parenting woes, which are entering a new phase as her kids reach teenhood. Of course, this opens up a whole range of rich comedy seams to mine - drugs, puberty, generational differences ... and having her feminist principles challenged by her irrepressible urge to comment on her daughter’s PMT (“If anyone had for a second implied that my mood swings were down to my period, I’d burn London to the ground; now I’m bonding with my husband over becoming a toxic man”).

Her poor family get a battering, as usual - part of Manito’s appeal is to parents seeking to vicariously live out their repressed anger at their nearest and dearest (“After fifteen years of family life, I have concluded we’d all just be better off as friends - if we could just communicate through a family WhatsApp group which I could mute, that would be perfect”) - but underlying it is a clear, if heavily-disguised, affection for her endlessly frustrating brood.

Mentions of Palestine and Lebanon are very sparing given the circumstances; but as the show progresses, it is clear that the, already high, baseline anxiety of Manito’s character has been very definitely upped a notch by the war raging in her father’s homelands; whilst her daughter's insistence that she give her London Marathon sponsorship money to sloths gives rise to some serious eyebrow-raising amongst her extended family...

Whilst the show is tightly-structured and scripted, Manito has also mastered that invaluable weapon in the armoury of the stand-up comic - the ability to improvise hilarious responses to the unexpected. As well as incorporating audience responses and attributes into her commentary, she also manages to turn a dodgy mic into an opportunity to simultaneously castigate both conspiracist paranoia and Starmer’s increasingly authoritarian turn.

In amongst it, the feminism is still there, but never in a preachy way. “I think it’s different for men, I do,” she tells us, noting that Zelensky’s image as a dignified and heroic war leader is apparently unimpeachable, despite the existence of a viral video of him playing the piano with his penis during his former life as a comedian. “I just feel if there was a video going round of Angela Merkl playing the french horn with her flaps, it might tarnish her somehow”.

Hysterically perceptive and riotously cathartic. Much recommended.

One thing’s for certain about a Jamie Mykaela & Friends show; there’s never a dull moment. After its first performance back in April, the zany variety hour is carving a spot alongside Hot Rats and Live and Peculiar in Oxford’s expanding cabaret crown, thanks in no small part to its fabulous and foul-mouthed host. In the midst of so many Edinburgh previews, it’s nice to have something that feels tangibly on home-turf, right down to the signature Jamie Mykaela cocktail on offer at the Tap Social bar.

There may have been some stumbling blocks tech-wise before takeoff, but once things get going Mykaela and her onstage maestro J Henry prove we’re in capable hands. Sporting cascading extensions, a floral headpiece and Cristal Conners graphic liner, she’s every inch a maven on the mic (‘Lana Del Rewley Road”, as she puts it). Mykaela is Oxford comedy’s hardest working polymath - how many other comics have you seen do a theremin solo with their tongue? - and Henry’s deadpan delivery from behind the keys is a great foil to her mercurial showgirl persona. From their bluesy rendition of Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’ to watching each act from the piano stool like proud parents, they’re Botley’s answer to Sonny and Cher.

And what of the ‘& Friends’? As with the show’s first incarnation, there’s nary a dud to be spotted. Sav Sood returns for a delightfully committed and convincing presentation of her application to be a professional Victorian orphan, and her wide-eyed enthusiasm and sincere delivery really sells the bit - probably why she was cast as one so often at school. This is apparently all-new material, and I can’t wait to see it fleshed out; keep your eyes peeled for Little Orphan Sav at a gig near you.

Monica Chatterjee strides forth with some character comedy next, donning a beard and baseball cap to manspread the good word about the power of narcissism as told through the manosphere. Chatterjee has great, swaggery energy and it’s a very fun premise that allows for a lot of audience interaction, but I think this character might need longer to cook to reach his full potential. In his current state, the punchlines feel a little underdeveloped, and some of Chatterjee’s best lines come after the beard’s been taken off, particularly the mid-coital brag that led to this slimeball’s creation (I won’t say anything except, don’t hook up with actors).

Then Ewan Mulligan takes to the stage, dripping clown makeup on their face and a harrowed look in their eye. Moving from a deliciously guttural duet of Early James and Sierra Farrell’s ‘Real Down Lonesome’ to their own act is like watching Tom Waits transform into Vic Reeves right before your eyes. Their - let me find the words here - balletic/modern dance tribute to the filmography of Michael Caine is something to behold, not just for its genuine physical dedication, but for the rug-pull in which a sweating, panting Mulligan reveals they’ve only actually seen three of his movies. The way to my critical heart is, to paraphrase Brian David Gilbert, a lot of energy into things that have very little meaning, and Mulligan nails it in beautifully weird fashion.

Last but not least is our headliner Jack McMinn, who takes us home with the trademark ready wit and deft lyricism that made him a 2025 Musical Comedy Award finalist. McMinn’s squeaky-clean, self-effacing stage presence contrasts brilliantly with his offbeat and surreal subject matter, such as the inscrutable powers of the Magdalen Road Tesco escalator (know your audience), or his twin loves of toy dinosaurs and self-pleasure. One of the few cis straight white dudes on the comedy circuit with something original to say, he’s the Tom Lehrer you can show your nan, and I’m glad to see his star is deservedly on the rise.

I’m willing to admit that this JM&F had a few more of the strings showing than last time, but it feeds into the scrappy camaraderie that typifies this night. Alt comedy is rarely a slick affair, and that’s what’s great about it - build up enough friction and you can set the world on fire. Jamie Mykaela has a wide circle of friends, and if it means more of these gigs, I only hope it gets wider.