Simon Munnery
A fringe legend using crumpled cardboard to deliver perfectly constructed maxims.
2 specials · 1999–2016
Get an email when there's a new special. You'll need a Google account.
Simon Munnery does not really do setups and punchlines. He walks on stage looking like he just raided a recycling bin, perhaps wearing a hat crafted from a kettle or pulling crumpled cardboard props from his pockets. He might spend ten minutes reviewing the contents of his own jacket, or interrupt a thought to blow discordant notes on a harmonica. The rhythm is entirely his own. He delivers bleak, odd rules for living with the severity of a street preacher, then pivots to reading both sides of a transcribed conversation about skiing.
Specials
-
A loose, dry hour of stand-up from a British alternative veteran.
Go Faster Stripe · 57 min
-
Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala 1999 with Rove McManus, Jeff Green & 20 more
A massive showcase of late-nineties comedians doing four minutes each.
Network Ten
On stage
For decades, he has operated as British comedy’s permanent cult figure. He plays small rooms and arts festivals to a fiercely loyal audience. He is the experimental comic that other left-field comics watch, maintaining a steadfast refusal to smooth out his act for broader appeal.
The trick of his act is how his sloppy visual presentation hides extremely tight writing. Underneath the homemade costumes and the absurd alter egos—like the sneering, top-hatted League Against Tedium or the relentlessly agitated Alan Parker: Urban Warrior—are carefully built aphorisms. He buries dense, heavy jokes inside the staging of a punk-rock breakdown.
Sometimes his sheer commitment to an odd premise means a routine outlasts the crowd’s patience. A bit about underground heating systems for tents might drift until he is the only one in the room still engaged. He does not mind the quiet. He simply waits it out, abandons the premise, and pulls another piece of cardboard from his pocket.
Turning points
-
Launch of Cluub Zarathustra Cabaret
Munnery served as the compere for the experimental London and Edinburgh cabaret, uniting major alternative comedians and establishing his reputation as an avant-garde innovator.
-
Television Debut of Attention Scum!
His League Against Tedium persona was adapted into a BBC2 television series directed by Stewart Lee, earning a nomination for the Golden Rose of Montreux Award.
At a glance
Fans also like
-
Stewart LeeLee and Munnery share an uncompromising avant-garde approach to live comedy, having collaborated since Edinburgh's The Dum Show, Cluub Zarathustra, and the BBC series Attention Scum!.
-
Richard HerringHerring emerged from the same formative 1990s British alternative comedy circuit, performing with Munnery in The Dum Show and Cluub Zarathustra.
Also on screen
- Attention Scum!
- 2009–2011
- Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle
- Flowers
- The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
A clip to start with
A clip of Simon Munnery