John-Luke Roberts
John-Luke Roberts is a British stand-up comedian, writer, actor and performer. He is known for absurd, strange humor that often uses props, physical comedy and characters. He trained with the French clown Philippe Gaulier and brings that style into his shows. He studied at the University of Cambridge and was part of the university’s comedy society.
In the early days, Roberts performed at comedy competitions, reaching the BBC New Comedy Award final in 2005, and he took part in So You Think You’re Funny. He helped start The Alternative Comedy Memorial Society with Thom Tuck, a project that yielded shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and other venues.
Roberts has written for TV and radio, including Have I Got News For You, Newzoids and Never Mind the Buzzcocks for BBC TV, and The News Quiz, Dilemma and Newsjack for BBC Radio 4. He also voiced a computer in Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully. In 2015 the sitcom Bull, co-written with Gareth Gwynn, aired on UKTV Gold, starring Robert Lindsay and Maureen Lipman.
He has been involved in podcasts and revival projects too. In 2017 he hosted The Tony Law Tapes, and in 2019 he co-wrote a revival episode of The Goodies, released by Audible. Roberts wrote and appeared in the short film Asparagus Tips, which won Best Horror at the 2019 Munich indie film festival, and he appeared as Klaus the German clown in Last Christmas (2019).
Roberts also works in radio and sound. He presented a BBC Radio 4 documentary on Infinite Jest as part of the Exploding Library series in 2022 and hosts the semi-improvised, semi-written Sound Heap podcast with Ed Morrish. Sound Heap won the BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Sketch Comedy in 2022.
He has performed many one-man shows. Highlights include Stnad-up (2014) about his breakup with Nadia Kamil, Stdad-up (2015) about his father’s death, All I Wanna Do is [FX: GUNSHOTS] (2018), After Me Comes the Flood (But in French), and A World Just Like Our Own, But… (2022), which toured internationally in 2023. He has performed in Australia, including Adelaide and Melbourne.
Roberts has created absurdist theatre pieces with other comedians, such as Terrible Wonderful Adaptations with Mark Watson and Kieran Hodgson, and he has worked with Nadia Kamil as The Behemoth. His debut stand-up album, It Is Better, came out in 2021 on Monkey Barrel Records. He has directed live comedy, including Josh Glanc’s Vroom Vroom (in London and Melbourne) and Myra DuBois’ Be Well tour (2023).
On stage, he has also appeared with Spymonkey as Al in Hairy, a children’s show and the first Spymonkey production not to feature the original cast. He created Clownts, a competitive clown show, with Viggo Venn, Julia Masli and Sami Abu Wardeh, and Cabaret Impedimenta with Harry Haddon and Kasia Fudakowski, where cabaret acts perform under increasing impediments.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:15 (CET).