Following Ivo’s tenth run at the Edinburgh Fringe, he will be bringing his highly acclaimed show Grand Design to York Theatre Royal on November 20.
Ivo’s feeling the pressure. Last year, riding the wave of his shambolic performance in Taskmaster, he played to the biggest audiences of his career, but in keeping with said shambolic performance, he gave himself too much to do and crumbled under the pressure. Proud of his ambition, embarrassed by his execution: we’ve been here before, old friend.
He’s called his show Grand Design, invoking the spirit of Kevin McCloud surveying a great folly and waiting to find out if the relationship survived (it didn’t). He knows what a risk this all is, but he also knows that he’s spent the last decade proving himself as one of the most engaging stand-ups of his generation, a wordsmith with a unique turn of phrase and a life that hasn’t exactly dried up when it comes to source material. This is his moment to seize. Getting to play the Grand is a privilege, and this is a man who doesn’t let that stuff go unchecked.
After only partially successful attempts at irreverent evasion in 2023’s Organised Fun, Grand Design is a fast and a furious return to what Ivo does best: exquisitely articulated updates on a relentlessly chaotic life. Navigating the increasingly three-dimensional challenges of modern parenthood, swimming against the constant riptide of his own nostalgia, running late for trains and planes and actual marathons, and laying out as many deckchairs as he can on the sinking ship of the Fringe. Ivo’s poured his most painful introspection into a tear-jerking theatre show and his greediest gamesmanship into his DJ Battles, but this remains the main event: a manic, fate-tempting dissection of the desperate gulf between his expectations and his reality, in a show where you can expect to laugh with him, and laugh at him, and laugh a lot.
Ivo has spent his entire adult life on the stand-up circuit, winning So You Think You’re Funny? aged 18 in 2009 and since establishing himself as, if not the UK’s poshest, then certainly its most apologetically posh comedian. With a bumbling charm to snare audiences of all ages, he’s detailed the various developments in his relationships/neuroses over seven sell-out solo shows, including 2019’s The Game Of Life, which received nominations for Best Show and Best Joke at that year’s Edinburgh Fringe.
He’s appeared on TV comedies including Have I Got News for You, QI, The Last Leg, Mock the Week, and Live at the Apollo, quizzed with varying degrees of success on Pointless, House of Games and University Challenge, and toured the country with Fern Brady and Darren Harriott for Dave’s six-part travelogue British As Folk. He’s earned his parents’ respect with appearances on BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show, The News Quiz, Just A Minute, and the drama Unite. And he’s shoehorned Swindon Town references into many an episode of BBC 5 Live’s Fighting Talk and BT Sport’s The Football’s On.
More than anything, though, Ivo’s perhaps best known for his visits to the tripe factory in the Quickly Kevin podcast’s Steve Barnes episodes, and his love of bananas and yoghurt leading to him being the victim of a prank on Off Menu’s Redemption Dinner Party during lockdown 3. With these cult contributions under his belt, in 2023 he finally started hosting (alongside best friend Alex Kealy) his own podcast, Gig Pigs, a heroically cost- and time-inefficient celebration of their love of live music. 2023 also saw Ivo appear as a contestant on the fifteenth series of Channel 4’s Taskmaster.
Grand Design is at York Theatre Royal on November 20.
Find out more information and book your tickets here.
