Steve Wright looks forward to having a good laugh in 2012.

Bristol’s two big summer comedyfests will both return this year. After a widely admired debut last summer, featuring the likes of Ed Byrne, Russell Howard and Ardal O’Hanlon, Bristol Comedy Garden will re-colonise Queen Square for a week in July: the organisers are also planning to add a smaller venue to the site hosting free live entertainment each day. And Bristol BrouHaHa, the Comedy Box/Tobacco Factory’s ace fortnight of Edinburgh previews, is also earmarked to return that same month, with similar plans to expand the existing festival.

Bath Comedy Festival, meanwhile, returns from 30 Mar-9 Apr, with an already fit-to-bursting line-up including another visit from festival stalwart Arthur Smith (who’ll be leading an Easter egg hunt!); magic and deadpan humour from Piff the Magic Dragon; the brilliant, puppyishly endearing Patrick Monahan; Wil Hodgson, Chippenham's finest fast-talking, My Little Pony-collecting raconteur; sketch troupe The Real MacGuffins; Norwegian comedian Dag Sørås – “not for the faint-hearted”, apparently; and Lee Camp, Jewish-American comedian, writer and political thinker. Over at the Rondo Theatre, always a home from home for the festival, guests will include Boothby Graffoe, Instant Wit, Quicksilver and Robin Ince. And, as ever, you can expect plenty of comedy, much of it from the experimental end of the spectrum, when Bath Fringe returns from 25 May-10 June. Other Rondo comedy draws across the year include the sharp, likeable Nathan Caton (16 Feb) and the guitar-toting Mitch Benn (11 Apr).

Back at the Comedy Box, 2012’s draws include weekend slots from Wales’s beguiling, freewheeling rising star Elis James (3-4 Feb – also at the Rondo, 17 Mar) and the sharp and straight-talking Oz comic Steve Hughes (17-18 Feb – again, also at the Rondo, 14 Mar). The CB also hosts three (three!) nights from cerebral, surreal and arena-filling former son of this parish Mark Watson (20-22 Feb).

Down the road at the Tobacco Factory, meanwhile, you can catch the gleefully misanthropic Andrew Lawrence (19 Feb); admired mime comic The Boy With Tape On His Face (11 Mar); the likeable and musically adept Isy Suttie (8 May) and a four-(four!)night run from everyone’s favourite lugubrious, wryly observational part-Cherokee, Rich Hall (9-12 May, pictured).

Mark Olver’s freewheeling new-acts night Oppo Comedy continues to flourish at Channings Hotel in Clifton, now run and compered by rising Bristol comics Jared Hardy and Fin Taylor. Every Sunday night, yours for a footling two pounds. A newish night with a similarly homespun feel, Noah’s Lark Comedy continues monthly at Leftbank on Cheltenham Road: entry is just £4/£3 and headliners thus far have included John Robins and Matthew Crosby from sketch troupe Pappy’s, so it’s another one that’s well worth investigating. Elsewhere, Tumbleweed Comedy continues every other Sunday night at The Big Chill Bar in the centre of town, once again featuring a mix of established and emerging acts. Olver, Hardy and Taylor are also running fortnightly new-act nights at the Wardrobe Theatre, above the White Bear pub in Kingsdown – and Olver has programmed a week of comedy previews there from Monday 23 Jan, names tbc. Other new-act nights, meanwhile, continue monthly at Clifton’s Richmond Spring pub (Thursdays) and in Bath at Komedia (Tuesdays) and Belushis (Thursdays).

This year we do, though, bid a sad farewell to the Comedy Cavern in Bath’s Porter Cellar Bar, which for over 13 years has programmed splendid, intimate Sunday-night comedy for Bath audiences. Almost everyone of note, from Russells Howard and Kane to Carrs Alan and Jimmy, has looked in at the Cavern on their way up the ladder: as a venue and a vital building block of Bath’s comedy scene it will be much missed. The final curtain came down at the Porter on Sun 18 Dec: watch this space, though, as plans are afoot for the Comedy Cavern to return, in either a weekly or monthly format, at a new Bath venue in the New Year.

Filling out the larger arenas, meanwhile, are Chris Addison (Colston Hall, 10 Feb), Stewart Lee (Bristol Hippodrome, 6 May), the gleefully offensive Doug Stanhope (Bristol Hippodrome, 8 Apr) and brassy NY stalwart Joan Rivers (Colston Hall, 21 Oct).

Weekend comedy continues on a three- or four-comics-a-night basis at RIPROAR Comedy and Jongleurs in Bristol, and at Komedia in Bath. RIPROAR highlights include a visit from folksy, guitar-totin’ newcomer Carly Smallman (11 Feb) and Stuart Goldsmith (18 Feb), an exuberant and hugely likeable former street performer who promises “a white-knuckle, high-octane meander through the worlds of sex, circus and subculture”. Komedia’s Krater Comedy draws include Gary Delaney (18 Feb), a deadpan comic who manages a high strike rate of inspired gags, and our man Elis James again (25 Feb): Komedia also welcome deadpan Canadian one-liner merchant Stewart Francis on 25 Apr.

Copyright Steve Wright 2012