Legendary comedy icons Steve Martin and Martin Short, Dylan Moran, Dara O Briain, and Dave Hughes are among the first slate of superstars set to perform at Just For Laughs Sydney.

Taking place from October 28 to November 3, the ninth edition of the Just For Laughs Sydney Comedy Festival will see performances take over the iconic Sydney Opera House along with shows at the Enmore Theatre, First State Super Theatre, Factory Theatre, Seymour Centre, and The Comedy Store.

About the line-up

Steve Martin and Martin Short are bringing their critically acclaimed comedy tour Now You See Them, Soon You Won’t to Sydney audiences for the first time. It follows their previous sold-out tour An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life, which was filmed for a Netflix special and garnered four Emmy nominations.

Steve Martin and Martin Short: Netflix trailer

Dylan Moran is bringing his Dr Cosmos show to Just For Laughs as part of a massive international tour. He’s been dubbed the Oscar Wilde of comedy; in 1996 he became the youngest ever winner of the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe and went on to co-write and star in Black Books, which won two BAFTA awards.

British TV and stand-up star Dara Ó Briain is bringing his Voice of Reason show to Sydney. The host of BBC Two’s Mock The Week, Stargazing Live, Robot Wars and Dave’s Go8Bit as well as the re-booted classic quiz show Blockbusters on Comedy Central, Dara has released five stand-up DVDs and written two children’s books.

Fred Armisen might be best-known as the star of famed sketch comedy series Portlandia, or as a long-term cast member of Saturday Night Live, for which he won a Peabody Award. He also won a Peabody for Portlandia, along with a Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Comedy/Variety series. Fun fact: he is the bandleader on Late Night With Seth Myers and was in post-punk band Trenchmouth and the Blue Man Group.

Portlandia (Fred Armisen) – Compilation:

Chicago-raised, LA-based stand-up comedian, writer and actress Beth Stelling has performed on Conan, Chelsea Lately and The Pete Holmes Show. She has collaborated as a writer with Sarah Silverman and Judd Apatow among others, and her screenwriting credits include upcoming feature film Good Boys and TV showsAnother Period, Verified andHilarity for Charity.

Award-winning comedian Nina Conti won a British Comedy Award for her appearances on Live at the Apollo in 2008. Her TV credits include QI, Russell Howard’s Good News, Sunday Night at the Palladium, The John Bishop Show and Christopher Guest’s HBO series Family Tree. Her directorial debut, Her Master’s Voice, won her a BAFTA nomination and a Grierson Award.

Australian icon Kathy Lette will bring her solo show Girls’ Night Out to JFL Sydney.  The celebrated author of 14 best selling novels including Puberty Blues, which was of course made into a film and TV mini-series, Lette has Honorary Doctorates from Southampton and Wollongong Universities plus a Senior Fellowship from Regents University, London. She cites her career highlights as once teaching Stephen Fry a word, Salman Rushdie the limbo and scripting Julian Assange’s cameo in The Simpsons 500th episode.

Atul Khatri is coming to Sydney for the first time and bringing his comedic take on career reinvention with the message that there is life – and YouTube fame – after 50. Listed as one of India’s top comedians by CNN-IBN and a star of the Hong Kong International Comedy Festival, Khatri also goes by the pen name Horny Sindhi, and transformed himself from an IT executive to an online comedy star before taking to world stages as a live stand-up. 

Also announced today is the return of the Just For Laughs All-Star Gala on Saturday, November 2 at the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House. The Gala will feature a line up of international and Australian comedians, once again hosted by Australian fave Dave Hughes.

JUST FOR LAUGHS SYDNEY

OCTOBER 28 – NOVEMBER 3

Tickets On Sale Monday August 12 at 9am

Visit justforlaughs.sydney for show details and ticket information.

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