Daran Johnson

50 shows to see at the Edinburgh fringe 2018

Superstar standups, daring dance, Brexit cabaret and a Bon Jovi musical ... Dive into our guide to some of the shows at the world's biggest arts festival.

Live Review: Ricky Whittington & His Cat

The result is a clever up-to-the-minute adult version of a traditional theatrical form with lots of good knowing lines, good subversive humour and good catchy tunes.

Capital panto: Ricky Whittington surveys modern London

A crack cast of millennial comics deliver social satire amid the poo jokes and spoof songs in an alt-panto created by Liam Williams and Daran Johnson.

Ricky Whittington & His Cat review

Ricky Whittington is a modern-day panto that's got everything, not least a sense of raucous fun with intelligent lines mixed with the nonsense, a social astuteness to underpin the big-and-daft comedy, and a tightly directed cast of talented people.

There are seven comedians behind what is by far the funniest of this year's BBC Comedy Feed pilots: the members of sketch trio Sheeps (Liam Williams, Alastair Roberts, Daran Johnson); Ellie White and Natasia Demetriou (who perform together as Mother And Baby); the latter's brother Jamie, and Australian comic Claudia O'Doherty. From this network of comedy talent springs sharp, silly, strange skits that radiate confidence and wit. If the long-floundering Great British sketch show has any chance of relevancy again, this is it.