A brand-new festival dedicated to the art of sketch comedy will arrive in London this March as SketchFest 2026 brings together performers from across the UK for two weeks of original live work.
SketchFest is a new collaboration between two of the capital’s best loved fringe venues, Canal Café Theatre in Little Venice and Hen and Chickens Theatre in Islington. Across the festival audiences will be able to see a wide range of sketch shows from emerging and established comedy performers, with each act presenting an original hour of live material.
The festival will feature performances from a diverse lineup of sketch groups and double acts including Biscuit Barrel, Finlay and Joe, Chaos Theory, The Supermalts, Forced Rhubarb, Next Level Sketch, Canker Blossoms, Frog Bone Trom Bone and The Tiny Umbrellas, alongside appearances from performers such as Justin Edwards and Dan Tetsell.
All shows in the programme will run between fifty and sixty minutes and showcase entirely original material created by the performers.
The festival opens with a special launch event at Hen and Chickens Theatre on Monday 16 March, welcoming artists, industry guests and audiences for an evening of sketches and conversation before the programme begins in full.
Throughout the festival the competing acts will be assessed during their performances by programming teams from both venues. At Canal Café Theatre the heats will be judged by Artistic Director Emma Taylor and Head Programmer and Festival Producer Cicely Halkes Wellstead, while at Hen and Chickens Theatre the judging panel will include Artistic Director James Wren and members of The Pros from Dover. Acts will be scored on five key criteria including writing, performance quality, originality, audience response and overall award worthiness.
The festival will also welcome special guest judge Kevin Eldon (Brass Eye, I Am Alan Partridge, Inside No.9), who will join the judging panel for the SketchFest 2026 Grand Finale.
The festival culminates in the SketchFest 2026 Grand Finale at Canal Café Theatre on Sunday 29 March, where the three strongest acts from the heats will present final 20 minute performances before the judging panel and guest judge Kevin Eldon.
Following the performances the judging panel will decide the winners of several awards including SketchFest 2026 Sketch Act of the Year, The Canal Café Theatre Choice Award, The Hen and Chickens Theatre Choice Award, Best Individual Sketch, and Best Character.
The overall winner and venue award recipients will receive trophies, a £100 cash prize for the overall winner and mentorship support, while all finalists will be invited to celebrate with performers and guests following the awards ceremony.
SketchFest also celebrates the history and influence of its host venues. Canal Café Theatre has been home to NewsRevue, the world’s longest running live comedy show, since 1984 and has helped launch the careers of performers including Catherine Tate, Lee Mack and Eddie Izzard. Hen and Chickens Theatre has long been a creative incubator for new comedy and theatre, supporting early performances from artists including The Mighty Boosh, Jimmy Carr, Frankie Boyle and Sarah Millican.
By bringing together these two venues and their shared commitment to new work, SketchFest aims to spotlight the creativity and energy of contemporary sketch comedy while providing a platform for the next generation of performers.
SketchFest 2026: canalcafetheatre.com @canalcafetheatre unrestrictedview.co.uk @thehenandchickenstheatre
LISTINGS
Syncing
Tuesday 17 March, 7pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
Monday 23 March, 7pm – Canal Café Theatre
After the sudden departure of their star member JT, the once legendary boy band NSYNC is left to pick up the pieces of their shattered dreams. With slapstick comedy, pop culture references and over the top drama the group attempt to survive without their shining star. Lauren Bray, Emily Minetti and Jasmine Jayamanne trained together at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama where they became fast friends. SYNCING is their first stage production. Actor and clown Tessa Redman joins the production as Joey.
Next Level Sketch
Tuesday 17 March, 9pm – Canal Café Theatre
Saturday 21 March, 7pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
For their debut hour, Next Level Sketch present a greatest hits set of their most ridiculous sketches from the past six years. Next Level Sketch are a surreal sketch collective formed from the improvisers of Hoopla Impro. They have been running shows at The Miller in London Bridge for six years.
99 Red Balloons in a Trench Coat
Tuesday 17 March, 7pm – Canal Café Theatre
Tuesday 24 March, 7pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
Absurdist and hyperactive sketch comedy from Cambridge Footlights' Baz Evans and Alex Denley Spencer. Enjoy sketches with zing, spice and dance numbers. A show where we tackle the heavy issues like ghosts in Travelodge cuck chairs, the carbonara car bonanza, and dating the UNO draw four card. 99 Red Balloons in a Trench Coat is the third production from Off The Mango, an alternative comedy venture founded by Alex Denley Spencer.
Chaos Theory: Desperate Sketchwives
Wednesday 18 March, 7pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
Wednesday 25 March, 7pm – Canal Café Theatre
Two women, two men and some music. Quickfire sketches range from light to dark and absurd to surreal. Chaos Theory are performer writers and stand ups Maria Beadell, Marigold Lately, Yasser Kayani and Bruce Williams with director writer Stephen Dinsdale. Between them they have played a puddle in an advert, worked with David Icke, worked with Dario Fo, stripped naked for Danish TV, been the face of British Gas in the Olympics, written for BBC TV and BBC Films, ITV and the West End and ridden the unicycle.
The Supermalts: The Highest Grossing Film of All Time
Wednesday 18 March, 7pm – Canal Café Theatre
Wednesday 25 March, 7pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
Carlos and Fred attempt to revive the Western genre in their pursuit of cinematic greatness with audience interaction and chaotic comedy. Swedish born Carlos Sandin and Shropshire’s Fred Newnes are the UK’s only clownprov double act and perform across the London improv and alternative comedy circuit.
Forced Rhubarb
Thursday 19 March, 7pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
Tuesday 24 March, 7pm – Canal Café Theatre
An hour of sketches travelling from the ancient past to the distant future on a stream of nonsense. Forced Rhubarb is a sketch comedy collective emerging from the Cambridge comedy scene written by Bryan Ghosh and Micky Gibbons. They are joined by two extremely talented actors, also based in London, Emily Carmichael and David Miller. This group, with others, have recorded a number of sketches for a future podcast, as well as entering the SketchOff sketch comedy competition, progressing through the heats to the quarter-final on Sunday 22nd February. SketchFest will be the first time this group has performed a full show together.
The Past
Thursday 19 March, 9pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
Thursday 26 March, 9.30pm – Canal Café Theatre
From the creators of the award-winning sell-out immersive comedies Burning Down the Horse and It’s Gonna Blow!, comes THE PAST - the world’s first immersive historical sketch show. Step into The Past as three intrepid performers tell the untold stories behind history’s greatest moments. From Abel and Cain, to Rockhenge, to the origin of The Muppets, be prepared for everything you know about what came before to be questioned. An absurd mix of Horrible Histories and Monty Python, the show is truly a one of a kind experience with the audience at its heart and no promise of educational value. Fishing4Chips was established in 2022 and has presented more than 90 performances to audiences of more than 9500 people across the UK. Since launching a pioneering brand of immersive theatre, they are branching into sketch comedy taking on the relatively simple task of summarising the entirety of history in 50 minutes.
Will and Noah: Dinner Dinner Chicken Winner
Friday 20 March, 7pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
Saturday 21 March, 7pm – Canal Café Theatre
Will & Noah invite you to a sketch show set in the world's furthest-reaching awards ceremony. It’s a night to celebrate life’s winners, including but not limited to: best original song, U13s player of the season, product of the year, soup of the day, oldest man, funniest in the office, Sunday Best, Monday Worst and longest time survived in a lion cage (spoiler: it’s the lion). Will BF and Noah Geelan are a London based sketch double act specialising in sketch, narrative and musical comedy.
Two Old Men
Friday 20 March, 7pm – Canal Café Theatre
Friday 27 March, 7pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
Though their CVs contain dozens of appearances on radio, TV and film (including The Thick of It, Rivals, Paddington, Hollyoaks, The Trip, Mongrels, Veep, How Are You? It’s Alan Partridge, Skins, Eastenders and a French public information film about the importance of washing your hands) with this all new sketch show Justin and Dan are finally back where they belong - playing to fifty people in a room above a pub.
The Tiny Umbrellas
Sunday 22 March, 7pm – Canal Café Theatre
Thursday 26 March, 7pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
The Tiny Umbrellas are your new favourite friend group of fresh young talent, bringing you hilarious sketches to shelter from the rainstorm of life. Journey with them through David Attenborough’s new wildlife prank show, stock photo auditions and a lasagna naming contest. The show is a feel-good, laugh-out-loud event which promises to leave a smile on your face. This isn’t a show to miss!! The show features writing from young comedians Eliza Copland, Chess Nightingale, Adam Pickard, Jan Maciejewski, Kian Mogaddas, Alex McGovern and Flora Symington.
Frog-Bone Trom-Bone
Monday 23 March, 7pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
Tuesday 24 March, 9pm – Canal Café Theatre
This new sketch show brings together fan favourites from BSNL alongside bold new material, experimenting with ideas and formats Frogbone Trombone is excited to show. Expect a ribs-cracking mish-mash of political satire, cutting-edge musical parodies, and wildly inappropriate scenes.Frogbone Trombone are a group of university friends who began performing together through Birmingham Saturday Night Live, a student run sketch and stand-up show.
Finlay and Joe: Pretend it’s Fine
Tuesday 24 March, 9pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
Wednesday 25 March, 9pm – Canal Café Theatre
Finlay & Joe are fine. The future is bright, sketch comedy is more financially lucrative than ever, and you definitely cannot smell burning. Presenting a brand new hour of scorching hot sketches, blazingly funny bits and combustible comedy characters.
Leicester Square Sketch Off Finalists’ Finlay Stroud and Joe Peden are a London-Manchester creative alliance. Inspired by acts like Aunty Donna, Mitchell and Webb and Victoria Wood they create an absurd whirlwind of surreal sketches for their audience
Canker Blossom
Thursday 19 March, 9.30pm – Canal Café Theatre
Thursday 26 March, 9pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
The Four Cankers bring with them a fresh bubbling broth of chaos and clowning, staging original sketches written by comedy brain and real life pensions actuary Michael Hall, who starred in 2003’s Edinburgh Fringe hit Stalin the Musical and also wrote the 2012 fringe sketch show ‘How the World Wags’, hailed as "the best thing to come out of Croydon since the riots”. Hayley Everitt and Tommy Murray join forces with Sam Murphy and Jonathan Hansler are Canker Blossom they have performed in festivals, theatres and fringes around the world, including: The Leicester Square Theatre’s Sketch Off, Edinburgh Fringe, Lost Cabaret, Fillet-O-Niche, Soho Theatre, Hackney Empire New Act and the Rik Mayall Comedy Festival.
Biscuit Barrel: The 69 Sketch Show
Friday 27 March, 7pm – Canal Café Theatre
Saturday 28 March, 7pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
Biscuit Barrel are a quickfire sketch group, who this year will be embarking on their seventh full run of Edinburgh Fringe (2018-Present). Started in Winchester, the group have gone on to participate in Brighton Fringe (2019-Present, nominated 'Spirit of the Fringe Award'), Leicester Comedy Festival, and last year even Hollywood Fringe.
Sam And _____
Wednesday 25 March, 9pm – Hen and Chickens Theatre
Saturday 28 March, 7pm – Canal Café Theatre
A classic sketch duo at its best - just with one member running a tad late… Gaz and Sam have performed in comedy festivals up and down the country, and Sam knows Gaz will NEVER let him down. However, for this show, Gaz is stuck on traffic. In a panic, Sam desperately tries to handle a two man show alone, utilising phone calls, half sketches, and audience members to get the job done. When will Gaz arrive? Sam is a performer and comedian who is writing his first solo show. He is know as member of the award winning comedy group Bad Clowns, who blend audience interaction, improvised comedy, and structured scripts into one manic show
Sunday 29 March, 6pm – SketchFest 2026 Grand Finale (Canal Café Theatre)
The three strongest acts from the festival will compete in the SketchFest Grand Finale before the judging panel including special guest Kevin Eldon.
