Mike Wozniak: The Bench

Mike Wozniak brings his new stand-up show, The Bench, to Salisbury Playhouse on Thursday 28 January, with the performance starting at 7:30pm. It's his biggest tour to date, and the set is built around brand-new material. A story about a bench sits right at the centre of it, and Wozniak likes to remind audiences that no previous experience of, or strong opinions about, benches is required.

If you don't recognise the name, you've almost certainly seen him. He's best known as a legendary contestant on the BAFTA and Rose D'Or winning Taskmaster, and he's also been a star of the RTS Award-winning Junior Taskmaster. Beyond the screen, he hosts the cult podcast Three Bean Salad, so there's a fair bit of work behind the scenes that doesn't always make the headlines.

The critics have a few ways of describing what he does on stage. The Times called him a comic of "adorably skewwhiff charm", The i Paper described him as a "charming storyteller with a splash of the surreal", and The Evening Standard went with "deliciously distinctive". It's that storytelling side that takes the lead here, with the new material and that central story about a bench doing the heavy lifting. If you've followed his Taskmaster run, you'll already have a sense of the kind of energy he brings to a room.

It's a single night at the Playhouse, so if you're planning to go, keep the date in mind: Thursday 28 January, 7:30pm.