Ed Byrne in A Night At The Opera
Sky City Theatre until Saturday
The smart, loud and funny Irishman returns for his third run at the festival - and to apologise for Ireland's greatest blight since the potato famine, Riverdance. His new show explores what goes through a bloke's head when he's forced to sit through three-and-half-hours of opera because it's his wedding anniversary. - Greg Dixon
Ben Norris
The Classic until Saturday
Star of the BBC's The Standup Show and host of MTV's HOT, this Englishman brought new meaning to the phrase "Shakespeare in love
during his short set at Monday night's festival gala: Think porn crossed with Hamlet, and you'll get the picture. London's Time Out magazine has dubbed him "a rare commodity.
That means good, apparently. - Greg Dixon
Irene Pink - I Was A Teenage Velvet Painting
Silo until Saturday
She's got confidence to burn, she's self-deprecating to a fault, has a hilarious line about frightening staff in High St frock shops and a name which nicely lends itself to headlines beginning with the word "tickled.
After her highly enjoyable gala night slot, Irene Pink's solo show offers yet more evidence that she may well be the funniest female comedian we've got. - Russell Baillie
Welcome To King Country
The Classic until Saturday
Our nation's history is Mike King's country and his clever comic eye surveys some its most vexing terrain: our patchy racial relations, past and present. James Belich he isn't, but King shrewdly plays on ignorance as well as knowledge, mining laughs from cannibalism, land theft and a cast of our history's "raving lunatics who don't mind a drink. - Greg Dixon
Naked Samoans Go To Hollywood
Auckland Town Hall Laugh Lounge until Sunday
The sequel to last year's Naked Samoans Talk About Their Knives is an even more surreal affair. Well, it is a play about making a film of the last play, involving the same characters, divine intervention, a sex-change reincarnation, much skewering of other movies and a spot of touch rugby to boot. Not as good as the first, but still very funny. - Russell Baillie
Raybon of the Lost Ark
Auckland Town Hall Laugh Chamber until Sunday
Forget Spielberg. Top comic Kan admits it was just a cute title. No messages, no agendas, just an erratic wander through his quirky mind. Raybon is either very shallow or very clever. Or both. - Gilbert Wong