Netflix’s Finest Comedy Specials

Bill Burr: Paper Tiger

If you watch only one special on this list, make it this one. Last year, American Bill Burr brought his blistering bar-room comedy to the Royal Albert Hall. Cancel culture, Me Too and his deranged dog were all in his sights. The result is a nuanced and enduring corrective to a political-correctness-gone-mad society – and, most importantly, it’s actually funny.
 
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James Acaster: Repertoire

James Acaster is the British, tweed-wearing antithesis to Burr’s bald-headed American brawler. What they share is a genius-level aptitude for stand-up. Two years ago, James Acaster announced himself to the world – in a bumbling, shy sort of way – with this quartet of 50-minute shows. Turning mundane life experiences into weird, fantastical vignettes, they show exactly why he’s been nominated five times for Edinburgh festival awards.
 
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Sarah Silverman: A Speck Of Dust

For almost two decades, Sarah Silverman has lived on the edge. When she returned for this 2017 special, she brought in a ‘Republican congressman’ to film a trailer that promised: “This is not the inappropriate Sarah Silverman of recent times.” Incorrect. Laser hair removal, her dead dog and even abortion might not make audiences quite as nervous as some of her old subjects (rape, Aids…) but there’s plenty of scat here, alongside some clever stuff that cuts a little deeper.
 
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Ricky Gervais: Humanity 

This 2018 show was Ricky Gervais’s first for eight years. In the interim, he’d built up a lot of material and quite a few grudges, thanks largely to his never-back-down approach to social media. His haters bear the brunt of his snark but, with exquisite timing, he also stands and delivers on religion, nut allergies and his own mother’s funeral.
 
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Pete Davidson: Alive From New York (2020)

Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson is the star of perhaps the best new film to come out during lockdown: Judd Apatow’s The King of Staten Island,. Catch him doing his own thing in this hometown special that opens with a great story about Louis CK trying to get him fired from SNL. Davidson keeps it personal throughout – Twitter problems, going out with Ariana Grande, the usual stuff – and the upshot is a show that’s both funny and moving.
 
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Dave Chappelle: The Age of Spin & Deep In The Heart of Texas

In 2017, Dave Chappelle released no fewer than four Netflix specials. These first two – released together but recorded separately in LA and Austin – are the standouts, capturing the veteran performer at his gallows-humour best. Bill Cosby, OJ Simpson and a host of other celebrity outrages all attract his unflinching attention. 
 
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Daniel Sloss: Live Shows

Scottish comedian Daniel Sloss has made a name for himself in the States and deserves a wider audience back home. It will surely happen for him: while his loose, faintly shambolic style feels American, his vulgarity is unmistakably British. The abject state of society is his main target, and he lands some big blows in the course of these two hour-long performances.
 
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Zach Galifianakis: Live At The Purple Onion

Finally, this is a Netflix special from before Netflix even really existed. Recorded in San Francisco in 2005, this is also Zach Galifianakis before The Hangover. His dry, alternative humour is broken up with some comedic piano tinkling and a recurring skit built around an interview with Zach’s ‘identical twin’ Seth, who cuts an amusingly tragic figure.

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