The Comedian

With an improvised script developed through workshops with the actors, this film presents characters that are recognisable and real, while depicting London with reflective honesty.

Even if a screening is sold out, tickets are often available 30 minutes before the start of the film at the box office at each venue.


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  • Director-Screenwriter Tom Shkolnik
  • Producer Bertrand Faivre, Dan McCulloch
  • With Edward Hogg, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Elisa Lasowski
  • UK 2012
  • 80 mins
  • UK distribution Trinity Filmed Entertainment

Ed (Edward Hogg) is at a crossroads in his life. In his early thirties, his unrewarding job in a call centre is getting more and more frustrating, while his career as a stand-up is not taking off in the way he hoped it would; in fact, he’s starting to acknowledge he might not be a very good comedian. His love life begins to look promising when he meets artist Nathan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), a gorgeous younger man who quickly develops a deep affection for Ed. Yet Ed’s feelings are conflicted when he recognises he is drawn to his female flatmate Elisa (Elisa Lasowski). With an improvised script developed through workshops with the actors, The Comedian is funny, touching and true, presenting characters who are recognisable and real, while depicting London with reflective honesty. Tom Shkolnik’s debut feature is bold, emotionally sincere filmmaking that marks the arrival of a director to watch.
Michael Hayden

Director statement

How did it begin? It seems like a lifetime ago or maybe it even started with another person altogether. I was finishing my last short film and was not in the best of moods... my girlfriend just dumped me, I had no money or real idea of what I was going to do next... On my lunch breaks I would go and meet my good friend Will at Soho Square. Will was working at a call centre nearby and we pretty much met every day for a long coffee and a chat. We’d sit on a bench and William would cheer me up with stories about his sexual conquests from around Soho. Every street seemed to have some funny and crazy tale connected to it. Time would pass and when the break was over I’d walk Will to his call centre and then go back to my editing. The short film ended and I told everyone I knew, 'That’s it – I’m done! I never want to make another film in my life!’ I told this to Bertrand Faivre, who had already agreed to produce my first feature film. ‘Go away. And come back when you have an idea. I’ll wait’, he said in his infinite wisdom… For a few months I did very little, mostly just walked around London. It was as if after years of rushing and running I had come to a grinding halt. In a dream I had at the time, I was sitting on the banks of a great wild river watching people whizz by in little wooden boats, while I was resting, my boat next to me. I began to notice more and more folks like me, people on either end of thirty who had lived in London for ten years or so and who were looking, like myself, lost. We were like moths, it seemed, flapping our wings at great speed in order to avoid the catastrophic touching down into the flames. Why were we so scared? What was it that we were looking for? And why could we never seem to find it? One morning I woke up and started writing a new idea; it had something to do with my friend Will, Soho Square, the call centre, sex, loneliness, London. I wanted to make a film about a London that I could recognise; about people who were poor but not starving, living on estates but not in council housing, who were foreign but not asylum seekers, black but not gang members, gay but not camp… These were the people that filled my life and yet our lives didn’t seem to fit into any genre and so for the large part remained invisible. The sad irony of our times is that we’re all so visible all of the time and yet feel so invisible so much of the time; constantly performing in public spheres but rarely truly seen. I decided that my main was goal was to make a film that was stripped down to its bare essentials. I hoped that by doing this we would be able to capture some kind of raw and truthful portrait. All the actors would be called by their own names and use as much of their own lives as possible, we would make up the film as we went along, striving to plan as little as possible beforehand, we would only shoot one take per scene (with two cameras), only shot in real locations at real times without disturbing the activity of the location, all public performances in the film would be to an uninvited and undirected audience, etc… etc… These were the rules for the making of the film. It was an intense, at points exhilarating, at points agonising journey through the wild waters. I had gone from sitting on the banks of the river watching the race go by to, at points, feeling like I was drowning inside it... But that drowning feeling, that feeling of constantly trying to keep your head above water, as painful as it was, perhaps holds something of the quality of I was looking for in the film. It wasn’t always fun, but maybe it was worthwhile... When the film was finally screened I walked out of the projection room and sheepishly came up to some of my oldest friends in London. ‘Did you like it?’ I asked. ‘It’s about us,’ my friend Christos said, his face open like a child’s, ‘you made a film about us.’ - ‘Yes. Kind of...’ – ‘I’ve never seen a film about me before.’ He said and he looked so happy, ‘It’s nice. It’s painful, but it’s nice.’
Tom Shkolnik

Director biography

Born in Israel in 1980, he came to London in 2002 to train as a director at the Drama Centre London. While at the Drama Centre he made his first two shorts, Headphones and A Picture of Me. In 2006 he made the short film In the Dark as part of the Coming Up scheme for Channel 4, followed by One Happy Moment for the Digital Shorts scheme and BBC Films. Since 2009 he has been working on his feature debut, The Comedian. In theatre, he is best known for his explorations of the world and work of Joe Orton.

Filmography (selected)

2004 Headphones [s]
2005 A Picture of Me [s]
2007 In the Dark [s]
2010 One Happy Moment [s]
2012 The Comedian