COVER FEATURE
SAVE LIVE COMEDY THE FUTURE OF LIVE COMEDY IS IN CRISIS; COMEDIAN AND WRITER SI BECKWITH TALKS TO SOME OF THE REGION’S CLUBS AND COMICS ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTING THE SCENE I miss comedy. I know, the thought of it seems a lifetime ago, and a room full of strangers huddled close together in darkened rooms sounds more like the latest Tory plan for herd immunity than any form of night out. But it was an incredible night out. Live, at its best, stand-up comedy is raw, honest and exciting. Stand-up comedy has been my life for over seven years as a performer, writer and promoter. My best friends are comics or work in comedy clubs, spending time at shows was my social life and I’ve loved embracing everything comedy has had to offer, even taxi drivers telling me ‘you can have that one’ on the journey home from gigs. Right now, live comedy is in trouble. Comedians have lost income, venues have closed their doors and venue workers, bar staff, sound techs and more are unable to work. The Live Comedy Association’s (LCA) recent survey cemented comedy as an industry in crisis. 77.8% of venues said that they could be forced to close permanently within twelve months and a third of venues said that they could go under within six months. As Lauren Pattison (recently elected as Comic’s Representative for the LCA) perfectly put it, “first and foremost the clubs and venues need to be saved, without anywhere to play we’ll be lost!”
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The government’s announcement of a £1.57bn emergency arts fund to be allocated later this year throws up both relief and questions. The money is to be allocated by Arts Council England, a body who in the past have deemed stand-up comedy as, bluntly speaking, ‘not art’. In 2015 a spokeswoman for the Arts Council said: “The main reason we don’t fund comedy directly is that it tends to be commercially self-sustaining.” So, essentially; people like it, it’s affordable, sort yourselves out. Stand-up is an industry that has never asked for help, but now we need to hope that a public body that hasn’t deemed us art in the past, sees us as art. Let’s just nip this in the bud: stand-up comedy is absolutely art. It’s also accessible, dangerous, moving, thoughtprovoking, daft, silly and most importantly, funny. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport have since confirmed that comedy organisations and venues are eligible for support from the fund. How much and how it’s allocated remains to be seen. Comedy performers are self-employed. There are plenty who fell through the gaps of any self-employed help offered by the government. Throughout lockdown comedians have continued to show creativity, taking to podcasts, Facebook Live, YouTube, Zoom, Twitch and
