The Soho Theatre's comedy programming policy has been consistently high in recent years but in the last couple of months they've blotted their impeccable track record with a few disappointing – to me, anyway – American visitors. Judah Friedlander failed to lived up to the hype and college humour duo Jake & Amir just made me feel old with their blend of juvenile smut and puerile banter. But the best venue(s) in London gets back on track this week with two surefire bets both opening on Monday. They know they are surefire bets because they are both repeat visits following sell-outs earlier this year.

Rich Hall was performing his Hoedown here when his show was awarded the prestigious Melbourne Comedy Festival Barry Award. Hall was typically deadpan about the prize and called it "a real kick in the pants," which is presumably a good thing for Hall. I saw this show back in April and it's great fun. Country songs that Nashville would be proud of, plus that trademark improvised banter, creating new numbers before your very eyes based on occupations etc of members of the audience. Highly recommended.

Ireland's Rubberbandits are a more, erm, interesting, proposition. Their previous gigs here were like proper music gigs. Imagine The Beastie Boys with sweaty plastic bags on their heads which they have to drain of drips every few minutes. The chairs and tables were taken away and fans encouraged to dance, which a few loons did. The raps might initially seem dumb but they work on various levels. Though I'm not quite convinced that their YouTube hit Horse Outside is quite the critique of the car industry and recession economics I have heard some suggest it might be. But, as Hugh Dennis used to say, it does have a good beat. Insanely infectious with the emphasis on insane.

Also on Monday night at the Comedy Store Paul Sinha MCs a benefit gig for Stand Against Violence (SAV), a small grass roots charity that focuses on violence reduction through education. The stellar line-up includes Ed Byrne, Kerry Godliman, Mark Watson, Romesh Ranganathan and some chancer called Daniel Kitson. Kitson doesn't do many club gigs these days but many years ago I remember him getting the great routine out of dealing with a crowd at the Comedy Store who didn't exactly warm to his intelligent, idiosyncratic wit. I expect things will go differently this time. Except...

...they won't because Daniel Kitson has been delayed in America and has just announced that he can't get back in time for the gig due to his plane back from America being delayed. He emailed his mailing list as follows (spelling/grammar eccentricity all his):

"Paul (Sinha) was concerned about furious Kitson fans trashing his benefit and desecrating my good name and his good cause.  We are trying to find someone to fill in for me. Im really sorry but if you were going, you should definitely not be a turnip and still go, there are good people on and its a good cause. also, if you have a ticket and you keep it - i will think of some way of making it up to you at some point. 

Again, very sorry to bother you and especially with such terrible news. I guess twitter would be handy for things like this. 

I guess. 

Okay. 

Seriously this time - Goodbye Forever. 

On the plus side he did announce London and Manchester shows earlier today, as follows:

"The last few shows of the current tour  - After the Beginning . Before the End - are now in place. I'll be performing the show a couple of times at the latitude festival along with a few other things - including a screening of a concert film i made with Ewan Jones Morris and a performance of Lucinda Ding and the Monstrous Thing (a forty minute adventure poem) with Gavin Osborn.

After latitude i'll be doing seven performances in the grand hall at the Battersea Arts Centre. I'm pretty excited. its a nice amount of people and its close to my house. Lovely. You should know that the tickets are £12 not £10 because we have had to build a seating rake specifically for the show. As you may know, I generally  like to keep stand up show tickets to £10 because the costs are lower, but thats not the case here. Sorry about that. I dont want me telling you that to imply a precedent that you will have access to all future show budgets to justify ticket prices. I just thought it was worth explaining in this case.

Keep your noses out of my wallet. 

Here is the blurb i wrote for the show for the latitude programmes - 

We will also be doing a thing where we only release tickets on the night of the show to people with id. This is to try and avoid people selling them on ebay and various websites for upsettingly high prices. If you want to buy them for someone else, just give their name and they will need to pick them up on the night with id. 

So, that's that. 

Thirdly (or secondly, depending on how much you care about charity) Manchester. 

I will not be in Edinburgh this year for the festival - I will be writing a new show to premiere in Manchester at the Royal Exchange in September. To be honest. I have barely started work on it and the details are very vague. It will be a show. That is literally all i know right now. This isn't clever marketing, i've just been busy with other things. I have some notes and ideas that i intend to crack into tomorrow morning. The theatre however were keen to get tickets onsale and so they are and you can get them here. 

urlm.in/rune

I'll send you full details of the show when i have them i wouldn't panic about tickets to be honest, theres loads of shows.

And i guess thats pretty much it for now. 

Hope this finds you well. 

Goodbye Forever. 

Daniel