If the Edinburgh Festival is Christmas Day, with new shows being unwrapped and presented by the hour, then September onwards is one long Boxing Day, when we all get to play with these new toys and eventually get bored with them, by which time it’s August again.

And, after the summer sabbatical, Comedy Carnival in Clapham Grand, and Comedy Tree at Putney Walkabout, welcome back some Edinburgh successes as part of their new season.

Of course, on the club circuit, the comics don’t get the full hour to present their whole show but at least they can distill all the best bits into their alloted 20/30minutes.

Lucy Porter (pictured) will be cherry-picking some of the finest moments of her show, Bare Necessities, in which the popular comic presents some candid confessions and hilarious gags about life’s important topics. She visits the Comedy Tree this weekend.

Another funnyman back in the Big Smoke is the excellent Andrew Bird, who will be drawing from his acclaimed This Is Ten Years From Now show. The south London fella is a top club comic and is always a guaranteed winning addition to a bill. He plays the Clapham Grand on Saturday.

Not all comics were up in Edinburgh, though, and probably stayed dry and stress-free as a result. Micky Flanagan was one such comic but he has a wealth of material to draw on, particularly his brilliant What Chance Change? show which bagged a week’s run at Soho Theatre. Micky will be at both the Grand and Putney Walkabout on Saturday, one of which will be a headline slot.

Will Smith is another who is perhaps too experienced to bother with all that yearly nonsense north of the border. He brings his hugely popular haughty, posh shtick to the Grand as well.

And completing the line-up at Putney Walkabout is the daft Rob Rouse, very much the kid who would muck about in class and brilliantly funny with it, although not so popular with the old-schoolers who want traditional set-up punchline, set-up punchline.

Comedy Carnival at the Clapham Grand, Battersea, show 8pm, doors 7pm, £12, £6 students, 020 7736 1446 or comedycarnival.co.uk, The Comedy Tree, Walkabout, Putney High Street, 8.30pm, doors 8pm, £9, £6 students, 020 7736 1446.

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