Comedy clubs in London: which nights are free, and what time the curtain really goes up

London comedy has a reputation for being expensive that the actual listings do not support. There is a pub room in Islington putting on free stand up every night of the week, and a basement off Drury Lane where the ticket is a pound and you decide what the evening was worth on the way out. Between them they cover most nights of the year.

The clubs, and when they start

Read off each club’s own site, September 2026. Up The Creek’s times run Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday in that order.

The free one

Angel Comedy runs at the Camden Head, a pub off Islington Green, and the shows are free to walk into, seven nights a week, at half past seven. That is not a promotion or a quiet Monday offer, it is the whole programme. Angel Comedy RAW covers Monday to Thursday and Friday follows the same rule. Free and unticketed means the room fills, so treat 19.30 as the time to be sitting down rather than the time to set off.

The same people run The Bill Murray round the corner on Queen’s Head Street, which is the ticketed room and where the previews, recordings and full hour shows go. Three slots a night is normal there: 18.30, 20.00 and 21.30.

The one where you set the price

Top Secret, in a basement on Drury Lane with a second room on Kingsway, sells most of its shows as a one pound booking fee. A contribution is collected from the audience at the end, so what the night costs is decided after you have seen it rather than before. The club is straight about the trade: if being asked for money at the end would spoil it, buy a Priority ticket instead and skip the collection. Named shows and tours are priced normally, 2 to 20 pounds. The bar does pints from 4.20 pounds, which in the West End is the actual headline.

The institution

The Comedy Store has been running off Leicester Square since 1979 and the week has a shape worth knowing. The two Monday nights are monthly rather than weekly, which is worth getting right: Old Rope, the new material night hosted by Tiff Stevenson, falls on the second Monday of the month, and King Gong falls on the last. King Gong is thirty comics trying to last five minutes before the audience gongs them off, and at from £12 it is the cheapest way into this room. Thursday to Saturday is the Best in Stand Up. Sunday is the Comedy Store Players, improvising. Evening shows go up at 19.30 with doors an hour before, and Saturday runs two, an early one at 18.30 and a late show at 21.30. The bill runs about two hours with an interval, so the Saturday late show is out around 23.30.

It is strictly over 18s and anyone who looks under 25 should expect to be asked for ID, which is worth knowing before travelling in.

Curtain times move more than you think

Up The Creek in Greenwich is the clearest example. It runs Thursday to Sunday and goes up at 20.00 on Thursday, 19.30 on Friday, 20.45 on Saturday and 19.30 on Sunday. An hour and a quarter separates the earliest and the latest start in the same week at the same club. Check the night rather than the club.

What we list

Comedy is the biggest thing we carry: 311 listings, more than any other kind of night on the site. Most of those are the West End clubs running nightly bills, which is the easiest comedy to walk into on the day and the hardest to tell apart in advance. The clubs above are the ones with a character worth choosing between.