Comedy & Literature 2025

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2025's Comedy & Literature Lineup is Here

Chump’s Comedy takes the reigns of End of The Road’s Comedy programming for the first time, and if you ask us, what a debut!

Leading the comedy charge is Dr Buckles, aka Count Buckulees, aka Adam Buxton. Adam returns to End of The Road with a special live edition of The Adam Buxton Podcast. Expect rambling chats, surprise guests and a whimsy that never fails to captivate.

Bringing unfiltered honesty and razor-sharp wit, Grace Campbell is here to tackle sex, shame and dating disasters with her characteristic fearless charm, whilst Michelle de Swarte’s unabashed storytelling and hilarious takes on modern life will have you in stitches.

Comedy legend Stewart Lee is back, not even 365 days after his last visit, to remind us why he’s still the sharpest knife in the British comedy drawer. Acerbic, unpredictable and always one step ahead of you.

Ivo Graham and Alex Kealy bring their hit podcast Gig Pigs to the stage, blending music chat, relentless quips and stories of questionable gig experiences; Harriet Kemsley delivers her uniquely charming and brutally honest reflections on love, life and sloths, while Sean McLoughlin talks about existential angst and towering self-deprecation.

Helen Bauer, after dominating the stand-up circuit and hosting her wildly popular Trusty Hogs podcast, will be lighting up the stage, while rising star Sharon Wanjohi will explore the absurdities of modern life and musings on the cartoons that inspired a generation of sexual awakenings.

Get ready to be dragged into an epic quest that treads the line between cult board game and total chaos as Adam Riches transforms the festival into a realm of magic and medieval shenanigans with Dungeons ‘n’ Bastards. Putting a musical twist on comedy, Huge Davies and his custom keyboard will have you laughing and questioning in equal measure.

Rounding out the comedy offering is Celya AB, whose effortless charisma and sharp observations have taken her from Birmingham to the world stage. Viral sketch sensation Chris Hall brings sharp stand-up chops, whilst duo Lorna Rose Treen & Jonathan Oldfield masterfully blend character studies with surreal humour with award-winning results.

We’re thrilled to be welcoming some of the most thought-provoking contemporary writers to the Talking Heads this year, curated as ever by the wonderful Julian Mash.

Samantha Harvey joins the bill fresh off her Booker Prize win for Orbital, a dazzling meditation on fragility and the vastness of space; Stuart Murdoch of (former EOTR-ers) Belle and Sebastian fame steps away from the band and onto the page with Nobody’s Empire – his tender and witty debut novel that explores love, chronic illness and 90s Glasgow.

Shon Faye returns to the gardens with Love in Exile, a deeply moving exploration of love, loneliness and the search for self-worth.

For those who like their music history with a side of wit, Miranda Sawyer’s Uncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs captures the madness and magic of an era through its anthems.

John Harris will bring a deeply personal story with Maybe I’m Amazed, a memoir about music, autism and the unexpected ways in which The Beatles and Kraftwerk can build bridges across worlds.

On a more mythical scale, Joe Dunthorne presents Children of Radium, a rollicking tale of family myths, radioactive toothpaste and a daring heist in Nazi Germany; Arifa Akbar, chief theatre critic at The Guardian, explores the power and beauty of the night in her evocative work Wolf Moon: A Woman Travelling into the Dark, while Holly Dawson’s All of Us Atoms examines memory, identity and the stories we tell ourselves.

Delving into the world of folklore is Lally MacBeth, whose The Lost Folk: From the Forgotten Past to the Emerging Future of Folk breathes life into forgotten traditions, alongside punk history with Audrey Golden, whose Shouting Out Loud chronicles the rise and legacy of feminist punk pioneers The Raincoats.

Full Comedy Lineup:

Chump’s Comedy presents

Adam Buxton

Grace Campbell

Michelle de Swarte

Stewart Lee

Celya AB

Chris Hall

Dungeons ‘n’ Bastards (An Adam Riches Game Show)

Harriet Kemsley

Helen Bauer

Huge Davies