It’s hard to talk about the climate emergency. This is despite, or probably because of, it being the most crucial issue facing 21st-century humanity. Which is why it’s even harder to be funny about it. To create climate-based humour takes a comedian who combines messy determination with immaculate comic timing.
Based in Bristol (“love multiculturalism, hate hot air ballooning”), Stuart Goldsmith is that comedian. This year, he’s touring and taking his second climate-themed show to the Edinburgh Fringe, his 32nd trip to the festival since he started as a street performer aged 17.
His latest set starts with the view from a balloon, so high that the people below look like ants, and it exemplifies several sudden shifts of perspective. Next minute he’s evoking the woods near Bristol, complete with mossy floor and dappled light. Goldsmith has been doing stand-up for 20 years now, and the last five have been dedicated to communicating the urgency of the climate crisis in ways that are both entertaining and purposeful.
Goldsmith’s last eco-themed stand-up, Spoilers was an Edinburgh hit and won Best Show at the 2023 Leicester Comedy Festival. Partly as a result, much of his work now involves corporate sustainability events, engaging participants with climate issues in ways they will respond to rather than ignore. He’s also been on Live at the Apollo and recently Netflix is a Joke with Adam McKay (of Don’t Look Up fame) and other shows. In his long-running podcast, the Comedian’s Comedian, Goldsmith interviews other comics about their work, what makes it funny and how they survive. He’s been doing it since 2012 and has recorded more than 500 episodes.
With his silver quiff, tee shirt, and irrepressible charm, Goldsmith is an utterly engaging performer. There is barely a moment in his show that lags or feels wasted. At one point, he describes himself as a “playful dad”, and there’s a playful dad energy about Canary. It’s there in the way he jokes with the audience, comments on his own work, and twists the terrifying bleakness of his subject so that the light catches a comic facet and sparks humour even from the threat of apocalypse.
One of his tricks is to pair seriousness with bathetic trivia. Goldsmith compares climate change to the latest Disney remake (“it’s real, it’s bad, it’s our fault, but it’s here…”). Outlining an optimistic perspective, he enthuses: “Infant mortality is lower than it’s ever been and there’s a new series of Celebrity Traitors coming in the autumn”. Commenting on his own quick-fire swerves in meta-critical asides or on the audience’s reactions (“audible gasp there”) often makes them even funnier. Goldsmith is an experienced comedian, subtly controlling the dynamic in the room like a hi-tech thermostat. He interacts gently and respectfully with the audience and includes a section of “climate confessions”, reprised from his earlier show.
The title, Canary, is of course a reference to the fast-breathing coal mine canaries that would drop dead from dangerous gases, giving the miners time to escape. The analogy is never fully spelt out, but Goldsmith also refers to his own anxiety and perpetual state of disaster-alertness. The bleakest speech in the set is presented as a breathless and seemingly deranged rant to his therapist, turning an otherwise chilling set of indisputable facts into a contextually hilarious monologue.
In researching the show, Goldsmith interviewed more than 100 sustainability experts and underneath a self-deprecating façade of relatable ignorance, there’s a profound understanding of the dangers humanity is facing. He doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. The show mentions veganism, electric vehicles, AI, flying (“there are 500,000 people in the sky right now”), air-conditioning, all presented with the lightest of touches. But Goldsmith rejects “purity tests” (“judgy McJudge face”), and the idea that fossil fuel giants can pass responsibility on to beleaguered individuals living in a society that this disingenuous industry has created in its image.
None of us can live without hypocrisy. Escaping from aspects of complicity until we’re “naked on a raft in the ocean” relies on various layers of privilege. What we can do is vote and – most crucially – talk. Goldsmith’s self-appointed mission is to talk for an hour about a topic so huge and scary many people would rather ignore it. And to make it brilliantly funny. This is probably the most vital hour of stand-up on tour this year.
Reviewed on 28 July 2026. Continues to tour and at Edinburgh Fringe
