Simon Brodkin - Unleashed

Simon Brodkin brings his new stand-up show Unleashed to Portsmouth Guildhall on Saturday 3 October, with the performance starting at 6:30 pm. It's part of what's being billed as his biggest tour to date, and the set leans heavily on crowdwork and riffs on a wide range of topics: wild swimmers, vape shops, Greta Thunberg, religion, and his wife's friends, Claire and Carl.

If you're not familiar with him, Brodkin is the comedian behind some of the more high-profile stunts of the last few years. He's the one who showered FIFA president Sepp Blatter with cash and handed Prime Minister Theresa May her P45, and he created the BBC comedy series Lee Nelson's Well Good Show. His previous tour, Screwed Up, ran for 170 dates across the globe and included three sold-out nights at London's Hammersmith Apollo.

Unleashed is a different beast from those earlier stunts. The focus here is on the room and the people in it, with the set built around the crowdwork and the riffs that come from it. The topics he works through — from the oddities of wild swimming and vape shops to religion and the people in his own life — are the starting points he uses to build the show. An EdFringe review described it as a masterclass of stand-up at its very best.

Tickets are between £32.40 and £55.80, and the show starts at 6:30 pm on Saturday 3 October at Portsmouth Guildhall.