"Emo is the most brilliant joke-writer in the game. You HAVE to see him live. He's amazing."

— Patton Oswalt, February 1, 2022

LOOMING
GIGS

Wilmington (actually, Arden), Delaware 
Gild Hall: Saturday, November 2, 2024 (SOLD OUT)
 

Baltimore (technically, Timonium) Maryland
Magooby's Joke House: Sunday, November 3, 2024

Indianapolis, Indiana
Helium: Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Saint Louis, Missouri
Helium: Thursday, November 7, 2024

Mason City ('twixt Springfield & Peoria), Illinois
Mason City Limits Comedy Club: Friday & Saturday, November 8 & 9, 2024

London, England
O2 Arena (Tribute to Neil Innes): Thursday, November 28, 2024

London, England
Soho Theatre: Friday & Saturday, November 29 & 30, 2024 (SOLD OUT)

Paris, France
Chez Georges: Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Rotterdam, Netherlands 
Comedy Club Haug: Sunday, December 8th, 2024

Fort Myers, Florida
Snappers: Friday & Saturday, February 28 & March 1, 2025

Shows are continually coming down the pike; please kindly click here to be warned when I'll be near you
   

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THE EARLIEST EMO ('83!)
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"Has a glitteringly sharp comic mind. It's hard to criticise when your windpipe is in a reef knot from concussive laughter." 
-Sunday Herald

"The absence has only made his heart grow funnier...one spot-on gag after another...his carefully constructed lunacy threatens to give the shambolic world of stand-up a good name." 
-Metro

"It's a relief to discover the straightforward gagman…as a master of one-liners, he's way ahead of anyone else."
-The Independent

"A fascinating comedian. His stage persona masks how incredibly professional he is…a master gagsman." 
-Scotland On Sunday

"His jokes are gold. And it's not just the way he tells them; it's the number of jokes he has....Absolutely top of the class in the laughing academy." 
-The List

"Utterly idiosyncratic. Refreshing, cranky and extraordinarily funny." 
-The Times

"Perfection….he sets demanding standards for any comic to achieve, and that even includes himself."
-Chortle

"If Kafka had done stand-up comedy, he might have talked and looked like Emo Philips."
-The New Yorker

"The E.T. of comedy…. A wise child spewing barbed aphorisms." 
-The New York Times

"If David Lynch is Jimmy Stewart from Mars, Emo is Buster Keaton from Venus…."
-Evening Standard
 

"A postgraduate course in lunacy from the master of macabre mischief, incapable of presenting a stale premise or uttering a flat line. He is the velociraptor of comedy: smart, sneaky and merciless."
-Star Tribune

"His jokes are more perfectly constructed, and his personality more compelling, than anyone else's...his comic fusillade is irresistible."
-The Guardian

"Hilariously funny...a breathtaking performance." 
-New York Post
 

A massacre of laughs."
-(Twin) City Pages
 

"Flawless comic timing." 
-People Magazine
 

"A one-man asylum, worth the trip." 
-Boston Globe
 

"Great." 
-Time Out
 

"Very funny and very strange."
-Chicago Tribune
 

"Brilliantly sick, but also brilliantly brilliant."
-San Francisco Chronicle
 

"An object lesson in perfect performance comedy. Honestly, I have never enjoyed a better act in Edinburgh."
-Punch
 

"Actually worth the hype, a one-off, a genuinely original comic persona."
-The Observer
 

"Unexpected delights pop up with unerring regularity in what is a cascade of comic invention." 
-The Scotsman
 

"Genuinely Funny." 
-Evening News
 

"Utterly hilarious."
-Glasgow Herald
 

Described by Jay Leno as "the best joke writer in America" and by British comedian Gary Delaney as the best joke writer in the world, Emo Philips has performed over seven thousand stand-up shows in comedy clubs, colleges and theaters, including a multi-week run at the Playhouse Theatre in London's West End. In 2018 and from 2022-23, Emo toured with "Weird Al" Yankovic (over two hundred concerts across three continents); Emo will forever remember the standing ovation he received at Carnegie Hall.
 

Emo has released comedy albums on the renowned Epic label; has had numerous cable specials (including an hour-long one on HBO); has performed stand-up many, many times on network television in America, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and the UK; has appeared in films (most notably as the table-saw demonstrator in UHF and as Salvador Dali in Weird: the "Weird Al" Yankovic Story); has lent his distinctive voice to audio books (including a 2023 collection of poems by Bob Odenkirk) and to animated TV shows (such as Slacker Cats, Doctor Katz, Adventure Time and Home Movies); and has even been published in Mad Magazine; but his first love, stand-up, remains his true one.