Alex Edelman

Edelman was born in Boston to Cheryl, a real estate lawyer,^[6] and Elazer R. Edelman, a biomedical engineer, cardiologist, and professor. He has two brothers, Austin, and Israeli Olympian Adam Edelman.^[7] He was raised in Brookline, Massachusetts.^[8] He began performing stand-up at age 15.^[9] He attended and graduated from Maimonides School in Brookline, an Orthodox Jewish based school. A baseball fan, he also worked for the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers associations as a teenager.^[8][10]

Edelman grew up in a Modern-Orthodox Jewish family and, following high school, spent a year in a yeshiva in Jerusalem. During his time there, he helped to establish the city's first comedy club, Off the Wall Comedy. In 2008,^[10] he moved to New York City to study English at New York University^[8] and graduated in 2012.^[11] The photographer Mario Tama took his photo during graduation, which was featured in his special Millennial. During college, he continued to perform stand-up and later joined Upright Citizens Brigade.^[11] He first performed in the UK in 2012 while studying abroad.^[12][8] He made his Australian debut in 2015.^[13]

His show Millennial won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe,^[3] the first American to do so since Arj Barker won in 1997.^[3] Edelman's 2015 Edinburgh Fringe show was titled Everything Handed to You and was the second most well-reviewed show at that year's festival.^[14] His 2018 show, Just For Us, was nominated for the Best Show award at the Edinburgh Fringe.^[15] He has appeared in the UK on television shows such as The John Bishop Show, Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled, Live from the BBC, Roast Battle, and contributed several anecdotes about his experiences as a comedian to the 2015 book Off the Mic, by Deborah Frances-White and Marsha Shandur. He has done a BBC Radio 4 comedy series called Alex Edelman's Peer Group.

As a comedy writer, he has contributed to the American television shows The Great Indoors (2016–2017) and Teenage Bounty Hunters (2020). Edelman was the head writer for Saturday Night Seder, a virtual celebrity Passover seder held during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also trained rabbis to infuse humor into the High Holiday services as part of the Jewish communal response to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[16]

In Just for Us, Edelman quips, "If I was raised secular I would consider myself bisexual. But because I was raised religious, I consider myself straight with some secrets."^[17][18]

Edelman had an on-again, off-again relationship with Canadian comedian Katherine Ryan.^[19]

• Millennial (2014–2015)
• Everything Handed to You (2015–2016)
• Just for Us (2018–2020; 2023–2024)

• Millennial (2015) – BBC Radio 4
• Alex Edelman's Special Relationships (2018) – BBC Radio 4
• Alex Edelman's Peer Group (2017–2021) – BBC Radio 4

• Alex Edelman: Live at the BBC (2016) – Netflix UK; hour-long special
• Until Now (2020) – album
• Just for Us (2024) – MAX

• Official website
• Alex Edelman at British Comedy Guide
• Alex Edelman on Instagram
• Alex Edelman on X
• Alex Edelman at IMDb