ALEX EDELMAN
Leicester/Nottingham
BOSTONIAN comedian Alex Edelman has announced his first UK tour and tickets are now on sale for his Nottingham and Leicester dates. From Edelman’s Olympian brother AJ to a surprising encounter with Prince William at the Baftas, the Just For Us tour covers it all as well as touching on Edelman’s ADHD, what being “brave” means in this political climate, and a gorilla that can do sign language. These anecdotes are all given hilarious, unique space – but at its astonishing centre is one significant and unfortunately timely story. After a strong anti-Semitic strain of online abuse was directed at Edelman in January 2018, he decided to covertly attend a meeting of those same antiSemites in a New York City apartment. The result was an explosive confrontation that lends the show both a theatricality that has pushed (and blurred) the boundaries of standup… and gives Just For Us its final, jaw-dropping twist. Alex Edelman’s first show, Millennial – about traumatic stock photos and young people – won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer, the first show by an American to do so since 1997. It went on to be recorded for a BBC Radio 4’s stand-up special that was included within Radio 4’s Pick Of The Week and chosen for Radio 4’s Comedy Of The Week. The follow-up, Everything Handed to You – about identity and the availability of plug sockets in airports – sold out its entire Edinburgh run and became the second-best reviewed offering of any comedy show at the Festival. Now with a string of accolades to his name, Edelman is on tour. See him at Leicester Comedy Festival, Monday, February 10, 2020 at The Cookie and at the Glee Studio in Nottingham on Thursday, February 27, 2020.