John-Luke Roberts is a British stand-up comedian, writer, actor and performer.
He was named as one of the 50 funniest comedians of the 21st century in The Daily Telegraph in August 2023.[1]
Style
Roberts' comedy style is absurdist,[2][3][4] and often uses props and physical movement, as taught by French clown Philippe Gaulier with whom Roberts has trained.[5] Roberts uses character comedy within his stand-up.[6]
Roberts has had jokes nominated in the best[7][8] and worst[9] lists at the Edinburgh festival.[10][11]
He presented a documentary on the 1996 novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace for BBC Radio 4, as part of the second series of the Exploding Library series, which first aired in December 2022.[22]
Roberts has performed numerous one man shows. His 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival show was entitled ‘Stnad-up’ and addressed his break-up with fellow comedian Nadia Kamil,[29] and his 2015 Edinburgh show ‘Stdad-up’ addressed the death of his father.[30] His 2018 show was All I Wanna do is [FX: GUNSHOTS] with a [FX: GUN RELOADING] and a [FX: CASH REGISTER] and Perform Some Comedy! He followed that up with After Me Comes the Flood (But in French).[31]
In 2022 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival he performed A World Just Like Our Own, But... and toured it internationally in 2023.[32][33] Roberts international performances have included Adelaide,[34] and Melbourne.[35]
Roberts has created absurdist plays Terrible Wonderful Adaptations with fellow comedians such as Mark Watson and Kieran Hodgson, performed at the Edinburgh Festival.[36][37] He has written and performed plays and sketches with Nadia Kamil under the name ‘The Behemoth’.[38]
Robert's debut stand-up comedy album, It Is Better, was released in 2021 on Monkey Barrel Records.[39]
Roberts has also directed live comedy, including Josh Glanc’s Vroom Vroom which ran in London and the Melbourne Comedy Festival in 2022,[40][41] and the 2023 Be Well tour show of Myra DuBois.[42] He performed as Al (short for Alisthair) in physical theatre company Spymonkey's production Hairy. Directed by founding members Toby Park and Aitor Basauri, it was the first children’s show presented by Spymonkey, and the first Spymonkey production not to feature the original cast.[43]
He created the show Clownts, a competitive clown show, with Viggo Venn, Julia Masli and Sami Abu Wardeh.[44]
He created the show Cabaret Impedimenta with Harry Haddon and Kasia Fudakowski of The Art of the Palliative Turn in which cabaret acts have to try and perform their numbers, while a growing number of impediments try to make it impossible for them to do so.[45]
