Day 2 - Teenage Cancer Trust - Robert Smith’s Comedy Favourites

Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall entered its second day with the traditional night of comedy. Superstar comedians left the legendary venue in raptures, as some of the UK’s greatest talent entertained fans for Robert Smith’s Comedy Favourites.

On Monday, elbow had opened the legendary concert series with a triumphant debut performance at the venue, as ‘Cureator’ Robert Smith arrived for London’s 2026 cultural highlight. 5 star reviews resulted as the band perfectly captured the emotional notes of the night.

From March 23-29, the headliners selected by The Cure legend also include Mogwai, Manic Street Preachers, my bloody valentine, Garbage and Wolf Alice. The headline set by Manic Street Preachers on Thursday 26 March will be the 150th show.

Asked what makes him laugh, Robert Smith said, “Maisie Adam, Bridget Christie, Jack Dee, Andy Hamilton, Dom Joly, Miles Jupp, Athena Kugblenu, Stewart Lee and Dara Ó Briain make me laugh! And Laurel & Hardy and Peter Sellers and Father Ted and South Park and Peter Cook and ... the list is way too long, and most of those on it were sadly unavailable.”

Tuesday night was helmed by Dom Joly. The comedian and travel writer became a global phenomenon as the creator and star of the groundbreaking hidden-camera series Trigger Happy TV and he supplied the unexpected throughout the night, popping up to create havoc and introduce the stars. “You look as surprised to see me as I am to be here. This is insane,” he said as he shared that Robert Smith had emailed 3 weeks ago to ask him to do the show. “As an ex goth, well you’re never really an ex goth, I was kicked out at 22 for being slightly too cheerful. But you’re still a goth basically. And when he commands you to the Royal Albert Hall, you do it.”

He later recreated his ‘shouty phone guy’ from a Royal Albert Hall box to introduce Jack Dee.

The versatile actor and comedian from London, Miles Jupp, who transitioned from the stand-up circuit to children’s TV fame in Balamory to becoming a leading voice in British satire was up first and regaled the audience with the tale of his preparation for brain surgery with a hair-raising story about a swab... and how far it should go. Closer to home, he plays “where in the house has my wife hidden something” after she swore his phone charge was by the kettle “maybe a week ago” and regretting that the law forbids us all from witnessing his post show bath, “that’s Keir Starmer’s Britain for you".

Bridget Christie, the BAFTA-nominated stand-up and writer from Gloucester, had the audience in stitches with stories from her menopausal WhatsApp group, with a friend who could remember none of her trip to the Royal Albert Hall - what band they had seen, what the venue was and who she had gone with. But she could definitely recall that the “Maltesers were 7”. And she sought to set the world to rights by urging us to take little boys down a peg or two, lest they end up the narcissistic men with “brittle egos” who start all the wars.

Sharp-witted Londoner Athena Kugblenu began with some sad news: “I don’t want to bring the mood down but I want to talk about something that’s happening personally to me. It’s an indication of the downward trajectory of society. People, who are not black, have stopped acting surprised when I tell them my age.” Athena also has no time for 30-year-olds who she believes are only able to use the internet because of the sacrifice of over 40s. “It‘s our internet, you only have it because we put up with it when it was sh*t.”

Comedy legend Jack Dee has been a household name since the early ‘90s with The Jack Dee Show and has since defined British "grumpy" comedy as the host of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. He was on typically sparkling form. “You can clap all you like,” he said as the audience welcomed him on stage. “I just found out I’m not getting paid for this.” He was surprised the Hall was sold out on a Tuesday - “one of the 7 worst days of the week. The Hindenburg went down on a Tuesday.” And he finished on a song about paracetamol, a drug he feels is sadly neglected by the rock n roll canon.

Irish powerhouse Dara Ó Briain, host of Mock the Week, proved his own iconic credentials with the audience in the palm of his hand for stories of charity gigs in front of a difficult, wealthy crowd: “Homeless? none of you have ever even been second homeless...that got nothing,” and revealed he is working on his first movie - “I got the lead role in the new Gregg Wallace biopic.”

The veteran comedy writer and performer Andy Hamilton, who co-created the hit sitcom Outnumbered needed cheering up after watching the news, “A full house, what a lovely surprise. I thought you’d all be out queuing for petrol.....President Trump says he intends to build a wall between America and reality. Too many facts still sneaking into the country. You know I first did that joke 12 years ago. He went and bloody did it.”

He did warn that he likes to “keep my sets experimental. If you hear anything that isn’t funny, it’s just there as part of the control. Last week I did a show that was 90% placebo.”

The 32-year-old from North Yorkshire Maisie Adam has had to move back in with her parents, with her husband, while they renovate a new house. “I’m in the shower, I’m naked. But suddenly, I hear the clip-clop of a 60-year-old woman in kitten heels,” she says with horror while trying to reset boundaries set when she was a child. She related the perils of reading out bad puns as the voiceover for supermarket adverts: “It’s phenomenal what you’ll say when you want a new kitchen.” She is often told in the voiceover booth that she needs to make it sound warmer. “I’ve worked out it means ‘can you make it more northern’....?”

Stewart Lee is the "comedian's comedian", widely regarded as one of the finest living stand-ups. Tonight he topped the bill and lived up to that. He expertly deconstructs stand up, preparing “5 jokes about the news” and even makes himself laugh. “It doesn’t really work me laughing at my own jokes. The idea of my act is I hate doing this and I don’t like you. There I was clearly enjoying myself, laughing at my own jokes. Do you know I realised for a minute there what it’s like to be Kevin Bridges.” He finished on a joke from “September 1989”, asking his grandad about what was the worst thing about growing old, “he said ‘all the friends I grew up with slowly dying off, one by one. I said, well Grandad, you fed them those berries.....”