I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: January 23, 2026] James Acaster

I have made a list of all of the contestants from Taskmaster who I want to see do stand up.  And while I don’t wish to rank them or anything, James Acaster was near the top of my list.

AND YES!  He came to Philadelphia.  We had seen David Cross in this same theater when it was called the Merriam Theatre ten years ago.

This time we were in the balcony and, good lord, those seats have no leg room whatsoever.  I think there’s a reason we don’t get balcony seats.  So I was a little happy that the show was a little over an hour.  Sad, of course, because it was hilarious, but pleased because my knees hurt so much!

So the announcer (James) informed us that tonight’s show would be performed by Craig Simons, the UK’s number one James Acaster tribute act.

And out came Craig Simons, who looks exactly like James and shares the same birthday with him (although Craig is from Pittsburgh and has a wife and five kids). And he says James’ catch phrase (from the Off Menu podcast) “papadams or bread?” (said in a ridiculously exaggerated Acaster accent).

Unlike the last few comedians we’ve seen who tell jokes and do crowd work, James Acaster has crafted a performance.  60 some minutes of an incredibly tight story.  There’s jokes thrown in, there’s call backs, there’s mind blowing call backs, there’s subtle jokes and blatant ones.  It was amazing.

Craig told a hole bit about what it’s like to be a tribute act (with a lengthy aside about how made Björn Again (Premier ABBA tribute act) were when ABBA announced their hologram tour.

Craig also told us he supplements his income by working at Lush(the payoff of this was phenomenal).

But how does one get started as a tribute act?  From listening to Weird Al Yankovic (this joke does better in the US than the UK).  He grew up listening to Weird Al songs and could relate to them better than the originals.  In fact he didn’t even know they were parodies.  Are you telling me that Like a Virgin isn’t the comedy song?  Being a virgin is hilarious.  Would anyone want to see the 40 Year Old Surgeon?  That’s just a reasonable age to be a doctor.

Craig had lots of complaints about Acaster, too.  He doesn’t do enough TV shows.  And he’s 40 but he spends all of his time watching Pixar movies (count how many Pixar jokes he throws in here, too).

He also happily made some jokes at the expense of Elon Musk (when he said the mean thing about Musk, everyone applauded and they even turned the house lights on–which he did not expect and which I’m guessing was in support of the Musk comment).  He talked about the kind of left wing candidate we need.  And they should be nonbinary because when people go to say things about them and get tripped up on their pronouns, it will make any argument totally foolish.

We laughed so hard for the entire show and  the way he wrapped it all up was truly fantastic.  (It’s good Craig is there to fill in for James).

He has set a bar very high for comedians going forward.  I don’t now if it’s a fair bar since many comedians don’t write performances like this.  But damn, this was so funny.