Cult comedy pick of the month: October. Stuart Goldsmith - Fairfield Social Club.

In his time, Stuart Goldsmith has scaled the accepted heights of stand-up, with appearances on the likes of Live at the Apollo and Conan O'Brien's US chat show. But he's combined this with a genuinely thoughtful approach. He describes himself as a 'climate comedian', and the depth of his knowledge of climate issues, though worn lightly, is baked into his current show, Canary. It's coming to Manchester's Fairfield Social Club in October, courtesy of top local promoters A Lovely Time.

Here, Stuart tells Cult Manchester's Andy Murray where the show is coming from – and exactly what audiences can do about the issues it raises.

 Cult Manchester: Hi, Stu! What can the uninitiated expect from Canary?

Stuart: Well, first and foremost, they can expect to laugh their heads off. It's a funny show, but it's about the climate crisis and my reaction to it. Through that, I'm trying to thread the needle of skewering my own hypocrisy, looking at how it's possible to think and feel and grapple with something as destructive as the climate catastrophe, but through the lens of a comedian panicking about his life - a comedian who's bothered to do the reading, and I really have on climate.

I'll tell you what the manifesto was. I wanted to write a show which, when I record it and put it online as a special, someone could say to their friend, 'oh, I'm really suffering from climate anxiety. I've been down a rabbit hole on YouTube and I've really worried and wobbly and I can't get it out my head', and their friend could recommend this show to them.

I say in the show that I just want to bump everyone one stage on: if you're complacent, I want you to be concerned. If you're concerned, I want you to be alarmed. If you're alarmed, I want you to consider taking some action. But there are loads and loads of jokes in it, I really can't stress that enough!

CM: Devil's Advocate question here: is being a climate comedian just laughing while the world burns?

Stuart: Well, listen, I personally can't stop the world burning, and I'm not going to sit here while it burns with a grimace. I'm trying to use my skill set, which is to do with making people laugh in the way that I do that. I'm trying to apply that to the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. We know exactly what we have to do. We've got 90% of the technology we need, we just need the narratives.

There's so much misinformation and miscommunication about it that it's inordinately frustrating for climate scientists - professionals in sustainability - to recognise that the person in the street doesn't necessarily know what needs to be done and why, and as a result doesn't vote in favour of it. So Canary is laughing while the world burns, but it's not just laughing while the world burns. Also, the world isn't just burning - the world is also getting colder in the wrong places.

I think the show will be of interest to scared people. For Pixar movies, in the writer's room, they try and tell the story in a sentence. So, the story of this show in a sentence is 'a scared man tries to make you feel brave'.

CM: Back in April, you went down a storm at Manchester's XS Malarkey..

Stuart: What a show! One of my best.

CM: Is that something to do with XS, or Manchester audiences generally?

Stuart: I've listened back to that show more than once whilst writing, and there is just something about a cultivated audience of smart people that know and love their comedy. That is such a joy to play to, whether that is XS Malarkey, A Lovely Time, the Stand Comedy Club, whether it's Chops Comedy in Bristol or the Machynlleth Comedy Festival. It is a joy to play to people who are as absorbed by comedy as most comedians, including myself. And Manchester audiences I love. I was a street performer for a long time and for a couple of years, I was in Manchester doing street shows outside the Royal Exchange in St Ann's Square. That's really where I learned to be a street performer so I have a lot of love for it. Chester as well, but particularly Manchester. There is something about North West audiences where they are tough to win, but when you win them, you've got them. So that certainly is a contributing factor. I'm really pleased to be coming back.

CM: Since 2012, you've hosted the popular Comedian's Comedian podcast, talking to guests from the world of comedy about their process and experiences. Has that been an education in stand-up technique for you personally?

Stuart: Yes, of course, how could it not be? Over 500 episodes now - but it's less to do with specific techniques. I think most of the things I've gained from the podcast are things that anyone could gain from it, not just comedians. Elf Lyons was on the show. She's recently done the best-reviewed show in the history of the Edinburgh Festival. God, it's brilliant. It's called The Woman on the Edge and it's incredible. She returned to the podcast to talk about it. But the thing that I will take from that brilliant conversation with a fascinating and wonderful creative person, the thing I will carry with me for the rest of my life, is a minor thing she said in passing: 'Do you have worries or do you just have things that you need to do?' So that's rewired my brain since that conversation. I don't know if I've picked up technical tricks, performance tricks, writing tricks. You'd have hoped I would have. But the big things that have made a difference are the things that any creative person or any person could also get from those interviews.

CM: Asking you to do a joke at this point would be crap, but what's a very simple thing anyone reading this could do to help to protect the environment?

Stuart: Well, what's the simplest thing? It's boring, but in terms of the simplicity of the action compared to the impact it has, changing your pension is absolutely enormous, because you only have to do it once. It's one phone call or one email. If you're lucky enough to have a pension, change it now to something that is ultra-sustainable and invests in renewable energy or what-have-you. The greenest possible pension you can find. It really isn't going to take longer than 15 minutes and it's going to last the rest of your life and make a colossal difference to your impact on the world.

I think the biggest one is just to pay attention to where you put your money. You know, people mither over flights - understandably, because aviation is a big part of our carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. But every 10 grand you've got in a shit bank - which is almost all of them - is the equivalent of flying a round trip from London to New York 11 times a year. So where you put your money is just one of the biggest, biggest things.

Also, when you're recycling foil, ball it up. It's no-one's job to get little fiddly bits of foil at the waste transfer centre and put them in a big enough blob of foil so that it can be recycled. So ball up your foil, you idiot. And don't worry about taking long showers or taking multiple baths. Instead, fix that little leak in your toilet that goes drip-drip-drip the whole entire time because you've broken a seal somewhere or the seal's worn out. That's tipping away bathfuls of water every day. So check your lavvy out, mate.

Stuart Goldsmith's touring show Canary comes to Fairfield Social Club, Irk Street, Manchester on Friday 2 October 2026. Tickets are available here.

Stuart's podcast The Comedian's Comedian is available from all the usual pod-places.