Emerging Comedians of 2026: The Niche Stand-Ups to Watch
Award winners, festival breakouts and gloriously strange cult acts from the US, UK, Australia and beyond. Every name verified, every credit real.
The best new comedians of 2026 are not on billboards yet. They are winning Edinburgh awards, selling out 60-seat rooms, building characters on Instagram and self-releasing specials on YouTube. This is our guide to emerging and niche comedians worth knowing now: the festival breakouts, the US risers and a handful of gloriously strange cult acts. Every name here is a real, working comedian, and every credit listed has been checked.
If you want the established innovators, see our top 10 alt comedians of 2026. This page is about who comes next.
The Edinburgh breakouts
The Edinburgh Comedy Awards are still the most reliable early-warning system in comedy. These are the recent winners and nominees we'd go out of our way to see. Our guide to writing a Fringe hour explains why the festival produces so many breakthroughs.
Sam Nicoresti
Nicoresti won the 2025 Edinburgh Comedy Award for best show with Baby Doomer, the first trans woman to take the main prize. The win moved her from circuit favourite to one of the most talked-about comics in Britain. Go for sharp writing and a show that treats a personal subject with real comic rigour.
Ayoade Bamgboye
Winner of Best Newcomer at the 2025 Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and the first Black woman to win that category. A debut hour that made her one of the names to watch on the UK circuit.
Joe Kent-Walters
Best Newcomer winner in 2024 for Joe Kent-Walters is Frankie Monroe: LIVE!!!, a full-throttle character act. If you like your comedy in the tradition of grotesque club-compère characters, this is the one.
Julia Masli
An Estonian clown whose show ha ha ha ha ha ha ha was nominated for Best Comedy Show in 2023. Masli moves through the audience asking people for their problems and then tries to solve them, with props and very few words. One of the most original live acts working.
Creepy Boys
A sketch double act nominated for Best Comedy Show in 2025 with SLUGS. Weird, physical and grimy in the best way.
Abby Wambaugh
A 2024 Best Newcomer nominee with a show whose title is its format: the first three minutes of seventeen different shows. A formally playful debut and a good example of how conceptual a Fringe hour can be.
Other recent Edinburgh names worth tracking: Jin Hao Li (Swimming in a Submarine, Best Newcomer nominee 2024), Kate Owens, Molly McGuinness and Roger O'Sullivan (all Best Newcomer nominees in 2025), and Urooj Ashfaq from India, who won Best Newcomer in 2023 with Oh No!.
Rising in the UK circuit
- Eli Hart: winner of the BBC New Comedy Award in 2025, whose final was broadcast on BBC One, after reaching other new-act finals in 2024 and 2025. A first Edinburgh run is the natural next step.
- Amy Annette: her debut hour, Thick Skin, sold out in Edinburgh in 2024 and toured; her second, Busy Body, followed in 2025. Clever, warm and quietly ruthless stand-up.
- Sharifa Butterfly: a London stand-up and former hip-hop dancer who started at an Edinburgh open mic in 2022, won gong shows at The Comedy Store and Top Secret Comedy Club, and reached the finals of Beat The Frog's World Series (2024) and Funny Women (2025).
- Ben Silver: a Manchester stand-up who was a finalist in both the Hot Water Breakthrough Act of the Year and British Comedian of the Year in 2023, and was nominated for Breakthrough at the North West Comedy Awards in 2024.
- Krishna Istha: a writer and performer who wrote an episode of Sex Education's fourth season, appeared in Netflix's Hannah Gadsby's Gender Agenda (2024), and made the Offie-nominated show First Trimester at Battersea Arts Centre.
Rising in the US
- Jay Jurden: a Just For Laughs New Face in 2019, writer on The Problem with Jon Stewart, and the man behind the album Jay Jurden, Y'all. His Hulu special Yes Ma'am arrived in November 2025. Fast, theatrical and confident.
- Mary Beth Barone: confessional, extremely online stand-up. She co-hosts the podcast Ride with Benito Skinner, self-released the special Thought Provoking on YouTube in 2024, and taped a Netflix special, Galaxy Brain, in New York in March 2026.
- Leah Rudick: a Los Angeles character comedian whose online characters (the "Wealthy Woman" among them) went viral, with acting on High Maintenance and Dropout's Crowd Control and the special Spiraling. Touring in 2026.
- Dahlia Belle: a Portland-based stand-up who co-founded the Portland Queer Comedy Festival and appeared in Netflix's Gender Agenda (2024). Soft-spoken and sharp.
- Charlene Kaye: a rock musician (she records as KAYE) who moved into comedy and solo shows. Her show Tiger Daughter, more one-woman show than straight stand-up, played the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe.
- TJ (Tanael Joachim): a Haitian-born stand-up whose special TJ: January 3rd is on Prime Video and whose album is Son of Haiti. His tour, The Alien Everywhere, has been playing the US and Europe in 2026.
Australia and beyond
- Elouise Eftos (Australia): Best Newcomer nominee in Edinburgh in 2025 with Australia's First Attractive Comedian.
- Toussaint Douglass (Australia): another 2025 Best Newcomer nominee, with Accessible Pigeon Material.
- Taaooma (Nigeria): Maryam Apaokagi's online skits, in which she plays every member of a fictional family, went viral from 2019. She won Best Online Comedian at The Gage Awards in 2019 and was nominated at the Africa Magic Viewers' Choice Awards in 2022. Not stand-up or alt comedy in the strict sense, but a big part of how comedy now travels across borders.
For more on comedy outside the US and UK, see our guide to international comedy.
Cult favourites: niche comics worth seeking out
Not every great comedian is emerging. Some have been working for years and remain cult acts, which is often exactly why their fans love them. If you searched for "obscure" or "quirky" stand-up, start here:
- Martin Urbano: a Texas-born comic whose Apology Comeback Tour, a satire of a fictional cancelled edgelord, was an Edinburgh Best Newcomer nominee in 2023 and is now free on YouTube.
- Brent Weinbach: a veteran of alternative stand-up and winner of the Andy Kaufman Award in 2007. His special Appealing to the Mainstream (2017) is a gleefully odd deconstruction of club comedy.
- Conner O'Malley: screaming, anxious internet-era characters. His self-released Stand Up Solutions (2024) is the place to start.
- Julia Masli (above): if you see one thing at a festival, make it her.
How to find the next ones yourself
What these comedians have in common
Very little, stylistically, which is the point. The list includes a clown who barely speaks, a grotesque character act, a confessional podcaster, a theatrical storyteller and a man playing a sleazy edgelord. What connects them is a willingness to build something specific instead of a generic tight set, and a career path that runs through festivals, small rooms and the internet rather than a single TV break. That's what "alternative" means in 2026.
For the history of how we got here, read our overview of alt comedy in the 2020s.
Frequently asked questions
Who are the best up-and-coming comedians in 2026?
Names to know include Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Sam Nicoresti, Best Newcomer winners Ayoade Bamgboye and Joe Kent-Walters, BBC New Comedy Award winner Eli Hart, and US risers Jay Jurden, Mary Beth Barone and Leah Rudick.
Who are some niche or obscure stand-up comedians worth watching?
Try the Estonian clown Julia Masli, the character act Joe Kent-Walters as Frankie Monroe, the sketch duo Creepy Boys, cult US stand-up Brent Weinbach and the satirical character comic Martin Urbano.
How do I find emerging comedians?
Follow festival award shortlists (Edinburgh, Melbourne, Just For Laughs New Faces), go to small independent rooms in your city, and watch the self-released specials many comics now post on YouTube.
Who won the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2025?
Sam Nicoresti won Best Comedy Show for Baby Doomer, becoming the first trans woman to win the main award. Ayoade Bamgboye won Best Newcomer for Swings and Roundabouts.
