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The art form, originally a Western import, has had its share of ups and downs in China. Is stand-up back? That’s the question Chinese comedy fans found themselves asking last month, when streamers iQiyi and Tencent Video launched “King of Comedy: Stand-up Season” and “Stand-up Comedy and Friends,” respectively. The shows are the first to feature stand-up performances since much of the industry was put on hiatus last May after an off-color joke by a performer at a Beijing show. The crackdown, which focused on the country’s best-known standup promotion, Xiaoguo, was never absolute. Numerous small and medium-sized stand-up comedy clubs continued to put on in-person shows, which were filmed and edited into bite-sized bits for social media. That helped create the crop of stars now needed to support two stand-up comedy series. The early reactions from audiences have been enthusiastic: After over a year in the wilderness, the stand-up scene has returned arguably stronger than ever
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