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Josh Widdicombe announces his brand new tour

Not My Cup Of Tea 2025-2026
​
Cliffs Pavilion, Southend
26th March 2026
​

Josh Widdicombe - one of the UK’s best comedians - is back on tour, not again! By now he has almost certainly mastered the art of stand-up, either that or he has wasted the last 15 years of his life. Come along and decide for yourself. Expect it to be shorter and with lower production values than Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, but funnier and with more references to tea.

Josh co-hosts the hugely popular podcast Parenting Hell with Rob Beckett, which has somehow become so popular that they undertook a live arena tour in 2023 and released a book which topped the Sunday Times Bestseller Charts. He’s co-hosted in over 30 series of the multi-award-winning Channel 4 series The Last Leg, is a team captain on Sky Max’s Rob Beckett’s Smart TV and co-hosts Sky’s Hold The Front Page. And he has an almost complete collection of Panini football sticker books.
‘Ace observationalist’ -The Guardian

Josh Widdicombe - one of the UK’s best comedians - is back on tour, not again! By now he has almost certainly mastered the art of stand-up, either that or he has wasted the last 15 years of his life. Come along and decide for yourself. Expect it to be shorter and with lower production values than Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, but funnier and with more references to tea.

Josh co-hosts the hugely popular podcast Parenting Hell with Rob Beckett, which has somehow become so popular that they undertook a live arena tour in 2023 and released a book which topped the Sunday Times Bestseller Charts. He’s co-hosted in over 30 series of the multi-award-winning Channel 4 series The Last Leg, is a team captain on Sky Max’s Rob Beckett’s Smart TV and co-hosts Sky’s Hold The Front Page. And he has an almost complete collection of Panini football sticker books.

Josh has had multiple appearances on Hypothetical, QI, Live At The Apollo, A League Of Their Own, Have I Got News For You and Taskmaster to name a few, as well as performing onstage at the Royal Albert Hall for The Royal Variety Performance.

Josh also hosted the cult 90s podcast Quickly Kevin: Will He Score? which has gone on to sell out multiple live shows and had its final show at The London Palladium in May 2024.

2021 saw the release of Josh’s first book, a childhood memoir, about growing up watching far too much TV in the 1990s. Watching Neighbours Twice a Day…How 90’s TV (Almost) Prepared Me For Life was a Sunday Times Bestseller.

His last stand-up tour Bit Much… culminated in a night at the iconic London Palladium and is currently available on Sky and NowTV.


Tour Dates below interview
Josh Widdicombe - Interview

You may well know Josh Widdicombe from Channel 4’s award-winning show The Last Leg, his podcast Parenting Hell with Rob Beckett, or his many appearances on panel shows. He is a witty, relatable observer of life’s foibles with a keen eye for the absurd side of the mundane.
 
Widdicombe, 41, has just announced tour dates starting in autumn 2025. In his brand new show, entitled Not My Cup Of Tea, he takes stock of the little things that niggle him, from motorway hotels to children’s parties. In this interview he explains why he has finally decided to embrace middle age, hot drinks and doing the school run.

How is the preparation for the tour going?

 
It's going way better than I thought. To the point where I could probably get away with doing it in the spring but I didn't want to put any pressure on myself. I want to enjoy it because in the past I was so busy with Mock the Week and Live at the Apollo and stuff I was chasing my tail and desperately trying to have enough material for each tour. This time I'm able to enjoy the process of creating the stand-up.
 
What is it like returning to tiny clubs to road test material after doing arena Parenting Hell gigs in 2023?

 
I’ve been doing 20 minute sets and it's almost divorced from the fact that I'm going on tour, which I think is the best way to write a tour, like you're just doing it for the sake of it, in the same way I suppose it must be nicest for a musician to just write songs for the sake of writing songs. I'm doing stand-up for the sake of doing stand-up at the moment. I love the experience of coming up with ideas and just being able to go and do them.

You’ve called your new show Not My Cup Of Tea…
 

Yes, because I like the phrase. And since I gave up alcohol in 2023 I drink a lot of tea. As you get older you realise who you are a bit more and I've realised that the things I love are like parochially British things like Martin Parr’s photography or Blur or Alan Bennett.
 
Is there a theme?
 

If there is a theme it’s probably about accepting that I prefer being at home and not having to deal with any other human beings. Which is a weird way to approach a tour show where you have to travel around the country talking to thousands of people!
 
You are more of an introvert comedian than a show-off comedian then?
 

When I stopped drinking I realised how much the reason I drank was really for social situations because I didn't feel comfortable in them. I grew up in Devon, I was an only child in a small school and watched TV for hours a day so I was quite introverted. Here's a good example, I’m currently doing The Last Leg every day in Paris and everyone's like ‘do you want to meet up in the morning?’ and I'm like ‘no, I'm spending 10 hours a day working with you, I want the morning to myself so I can read a book in bed.’ And there's something about observational comedy, it’s about watching from the outside, so I wonder whether that is part of why I do comedy.

Your style isn't topical so you don't have to worry about writing political jokes now and then the Prime Minister changing by the time the tour starts…
 

That's right. My last tour straddled Covid and when I came back to do the rescheduled dates all of the stuff was still relevant. For me it's always where I just say something and I think that would be fun for stand-up, I'll note that in my phone and work that up at a gig. Like I thought about talking about giving up drinking but realised that was never going to be as funny as talking about Inside The Factory with Gregg Wallace.

You famously joke about everyday frustrations. Do you still have the same frustrations now you’ve had so much success with The Last Leg and Parenting Hell?
 

I live a very mundane life and I really like that. I like leaning into the fact that I like doing the school run or the big shop. I suppose I've finally become comfortable with that. After years of not knowing who I was I'm quite happy being middle-aged. I’ve made my peace with the fact that I like putting my kids to bed and watching a Netflix documentary about basketball even though I don’t like basketball.

Do you expect you’ll get a “Parenting Hell” audience on this tour?
 

That’s interesting. Obviously there's people that won't be there for Parenting Hell so I'm not going to do loads of parenting stuff. There's a bit about my family but not a huge amount. Sometimes an anecdote that works on the podcast doesn't work as stand-up. There was a saga on the podcast about my number plate being cloned that I have turned into a routine but stand-up isn't just telling an anecdote like you would on the podcast. There have to be observations and jokes around the story.
 
Are there any other new routines you think will make the finished show?
 
There is a bit about children's parties and party bags so as you can see I'm dealing with the big issues! I take a huge pride in the banality of the topics I talk about. I think that's my favourite type of stand-up – really niche observations about silly little things that you wouldn't think about. I've got no interest in the big topics.

Has Parenting Hell's massive success changed your stand-up style?
 

I think the podcast has had a huge impact on how I understand myself as a comedian. I spent years terrified of letting the audience know who I was and then we did Parenting Hell and I suddenly saw that the more I showed myself the funnier I am. So I think it will almost certainly be the case that I’ve changed, but I wouldn't ever do it consciously. I saw Ed Gamble at the Hackney Empire recently and – I’d hate him to know this – I found it incredibly inspiring because he was funny every 20 seconds for an hour and 10 minutes and that is everything I want to be. Just be as funny as possible.
 
Did you find it easy to give up drinking?
 

I gave up in April 2023 and I found gigs to be quite easy because you just enjoy the bands. Or going to a football match I find that easy, but I wouldn't find going to a party or a stag do easy because if I drink I really drink. When I drank it was a laugh until it was not a laugh.

You’ve been so busy with TV such as The Last Leg have you missed stand-up?
 

It took a while for me to think I wanted to do stand-up again after the pandemic. I think I got really used to being at home. I hadn't had evenings off for 12 years and for the first time I got my evenings back and I was like ‘oh this is what it's like and it’s really nice.’ But now I'm really loving it again.

Do you ever worry about how long success will last?
 

It's the curse of the freelance. You can go up and down in terms of venue size, I don't know where I am on that graph. I’d rather work really hard and take the opportunities while they're here now. One day they might not be here. People ask ‘why did you do that show?’ and you're like ‘because it's fun, because I love it and I get paid really well to do what I love so why wouldn't I do it?’ I can't believe that I got paid to go to the Paralympics. This is my hobby that got out of hand!



Tickets: www.joshwiddicombe.com
Tour Schedule:

2025:

Sunday 14 September:        Canterbury, The Marlowe
Wednesday 17 September        Bedford, Corn Exchange
Thursday 18 September        King’s Lynn, Corn Exchange
Saturday 20 September        Fareham, Fareham Live
Thursday 25 September        Swindon, Wyvern
Friday 26 September        Eastbourne, Congress
Sunday 28 September        Bournemouth, Pavilion
Tuesday 30 September        Malvern, Festival Theatre

Thursday 2 October            Hull, City Hall
Saturday 4 October            Doncaster, CAST
Sunday 5 October            Dartford, Orchard Theatre
Wednesday 8 October        Guildford, G Live
Thursday 9 October            High Wycombe, Swan Theatre
Saturday 11 October        Cambridge, Corn Exchange
Tuesday 14 October        Reading, Hexagon
Thursday 16 October        Hastings, White Rock Theatre
Saturday 18 October        Coventry, Warwick Arts Centre
Thursday 23 October        Croydon, Fairfield Halls
Saturday 25 October        Portsmouth, Kings Theatre

Saturday 1 November        Halifax, Victoria Theatre
Sunday 2 November        Wolverhampton, Grand
Monday 3 November        Llandudno, Venue Cymru
Tuesday 4 November        Chester, Storyhouse
Saturday 8 November        Exeter, Northcott Theatre at the Great Hall
Sunday 9 November        Truro, Hall For Cornwall
Monday 10 November        Torquay, Princess Theatre
Tuesday 11 November        Yeovil, Westlands
Saturday 15 November        Buxton, Opera House
Sunday 16 November        Scunthorpe, Bath’s Hall
Monday 17 November        Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne Theatre
Tuesday 18 November        Stockton, The Globe
Saturday 22 November        Stockport, Plaza
Sunday 23 November        Blackpool, Grand
Tuesday 25 November        Northampton, Derngate
Sunday 30 November        Liverpool, Philharmonic

2026:

Saturday 28 February        York, Barbican

Saturday 7 March            Douglas, Gaiety Theatre
Thursday 12 March            Woking, New Victoria Theatre
Saturday 14 March            Aylesbury, Waterside Theatre
Thursday 19 March            Bromley, Churchill Theatre
Saturday 21 March            Nottingham, Royal Concert Hall
Thursday 26 March            Southend, Cliffs Pavilion

Saturday 11 April            Ipswich, Regent Theatre
Friday 17 April            Grimsby, Auditorium
Saturday 18 April            Stoke-On-Trent, The Regent Theatre
Sunday 19 April            Salford, Lowry (Lyric)
Friday 24 April            Brighton, Dome
Saturday 25 April            Oxford, New Theatre

Friday 1 May                Aberdeen, Music Hall
Saturday 2 May            Edinburgh, Playhouse
Sunday 3 May            Glasgow, King’s Theatre
Monday 4 May            Inverness, Eden Court
Tuesday 5 May            Birmingham, Hippodrome
Wednesday 6 May            Milton Keynes, Theatre
Saturday 9 May            Swansea, Arena
Sunday 10 May            Cardiff, New Theatre
Monday 11 May            Cheltenham, Town Hall
Saturday 16 May            London, Hackney Empire

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