This chapter discusses a number of crucial dimensions of stand-up comedy (as distinct from sketch comedy). After briefly outlining its origins in the United States and Britain in venues such as vaudeville and the music hall, the next two sections are devoted to characterizing typically recurring features of stand-up comedy. A summary of these features is offered but this list should not be mistaken for an analytic or real definition in terms of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. Rather it is an attempt to capture what initially comes to mind when people hear something described as “stand-up comedy.” Since the notion of incongruity figures in the account of stand-up comedy, a section on the relevant concept of incongruity for this discussion is included. From examination of the structure and content of stand-up comedy, we move to the matter of its performance with comments on comic delivery. This leads to a consideration of the way in which topicality is a regularly recurring feature of stand-up comedy. With topicality, of course, comes issues of ethics and politics. Thus, we conclude with a look at current debates about the relation of stand-up comedy to morality and warn against the commonly voiced assumption nowadays that stand-up comedy is essentially ethically progressive.