Following Ivo Graham and his tenth run at the Edinburgh Fringe, he’s hitting the road in October with his very highly acclaimed show Grand Design.
Ivo’s feeling the pressure. Last year, riding the wave of his shambolic performance in Taskmaster, he played to the biggest audiences of his career, but in keeping with said shambolic performance, he gave himself too much to do and crumbled under the pressure. Proud of his ambition, embarrassed by his execution: we’ve been here before, old friend.
He’s called his show Grand Design, invoking the spirit of Kevin McCloud surveying a great folly and waiting to find out if the relationship survived (it didn’t). He knows what a risk this all is, but he also knows that he’s spent the last decade proving himself as one of the most engaging stand-ups of his generation, a wordsmith with a unique turn of phrase and a life that hasn’t exactly dried up when it comes to source material. This is his moment to seize.
After only partially successful attempts at irreverent evasion in 2023’s Organised Fun, Grand Design is a fast and a furious return to what Ivo does best: exquisitely articulated updates on a relentlessly chaotic life. Navigating the increasingly three-dimensional challenges of modern parenthood, swimming against the constant riptide of his own nostalgia, running late for trains and planes and actual marathons, and laying out as many deckchairs as he can on the sinking ship of the Fringe. Ivo’s poured his most painful introspection into a tear-jerking theatre show Carousel and his greediest gamesmanship into his DJ Battles, but this remains the main event: a manic, fate-tempting dissection of the desperate gulf between his expectations and his reality, in a show where you can expect to laugh with him, and laugh at him, and laugh a lot.
Ivo Graham has spent his entire adult life on the stand-up circuit, winning So You Think You’re Funny? aged 18 in 2009 and since establishing himself as, if not the UK’s poshest, then certainly its most apologetically posh comedian. With a bumbling charm to snare audiences of all ages, he’s detailed the various developments in his relationships/neuroses over seven sell-out solo shows, including 2019’s The Game Of Life, which received nominations for Best Show and Best Joke at that year’s Edinburgh Fringe.
TOUR SCHEDULE:
Wednesday 2 October Bury St Edmunds, The Apex
Sunday 6 October Cardiff, Glee Club
Wednesday 9 October Folkestone, Quarterhouse
Tuesday 15 October Dunstable, Grove Theatre
Friday 18 October Winchester, Theatre Royal
Friday 1 November London, Blackheath Halls
Sunday 3 November Bristol, Old Vic
Friday 8 November Portsmouth, New Theatre
Friday 15 November Salisbury, Playhouse
Saturday 16 November Bridgwater, McMillan Theatre
Wednesday 20 November York, Theatre Royal
Thursday 21 November Burton On Trent, The Brewhouse
Sunday 24 November Leicester, Y Theatre
Wednesday 27 November Milton Keynes, The Stables
Friday 29 November Swansea, Taliesin Arts Centre
Tickets: ivograham.com
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