Going to Lisbon's comedy festival this weekend? Here are the seven shows and when they start
Worten Mock Fest returns to Cinema São Jorge from 28 to 30 August, with stand-up, live podcasts and Portuguese guests. Every set runs 75 minutes and every room is 16-plus.
For three nights the Cinema São Jorge stops being a cinema. Worten Mock Fest takes over the Avenida da Liberdade venue from 28 to 30 August, in a second edition that puts international stand-up, live podcasts and Portuguese comics through the same building on the same three nights.
Seven shows in total. Friday opens with Cubinho at 6pm and closes with the American Chris D’Elia at 10pm. Saturday brings Os Primos at 6pm and Tons de Comédia at 10pm. Sunday is the busiest night of the three: Palácio da Ajuda at 6pm, a Portuguese bill with Guilherme Duarte, Diogo Guerreiro, André Freitas, Miguel Neves and Manuel Rosa at 8pm, and Sam Morril closing the festival at 10pm.
How long each show runs
Seventy-five minutes, identically, across all seven. That makes the evening unusually easy to plan. A 6pm set has you back outside by about 7.15pm, which is a comfortable dinner before a 10pm show if you fancy doing two in one night.
Every room is 16-plus, with no announced exceptions.
Getting there
The São Jorge sits on Avenida da Liberdade, a few minutes’ walk from Avenida station on the blue line. That is the case for leaving the car behind — the Liberdade on a Saturday night is not somewhere you want to be circling for a space, and the blue line serves both ends of the avenue.
Tickets are sold at the cinema box office and online. If you are the sort to decide on the night, assume the international headliners go first: when Michelle Wolf played Lisbon in March 2025 she did two shows on the same day and the later one sold out.
If one festival will not fill the weekend, there is plenty more happening from north to south between Friday and Sunday. And anyone who likes a festival with a roof should know that MOTELx turns 20 in September, in this same building.
Photo: János Korom Dr. / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)