Female Comedians Are No Laughing Matter

Written by: Ashley Frieze
Published: Wednesday 29th June 2011

We asked Ashley Frieze, one of the organisers of Funny's Funny, the new competition that aims to support female stand-ups, to tell us more about how the organisation started, how things are going, and why the group believes there is a need for a female-only competition in the first place...

Female comedians don't always get a fair deal from the comedy world. Some promoters will not book more than a certain number of women on the same bill, some audiences seem biased against any female comedian on the bill, and there's a well-worn cliché that "women aren't funny". This is clearly unfair and ridiculous. You don't have to look hard to find a hilarious comedian who happens to be female; gender is not important.

Statistically speaking, there are fewer female comedians than men, and the reason for this is unclear. Perhaps the current comedy circuit puts women off, or perhaps some male comedians get into comedy to satisfy a male-only need. It shouldn't matter. What matters is whether a comedian entertains you and makes you laugh.

The Funny Women organisation has been running female only comedy events for years and claims to campaign to give women a fair deal in comedy. This year, the Funny Women organisers decided to levy an entry fee for their annual comedy competition - it would cost £15 to perform on their stage to their paying audience, for the chance of getting into the final, whose prize was a recording of the winning performance, and the chance to sign up with a small management company.

This seemingly innocuous news prompted three things. Firstly a number of high-profile female comedians, including Sarah Millican, Jo Caulfield and Shappi Khorsandi (pictured), spoke out against this 'Pay to Play' scheme. They reasonably pointed out that you don't and shouldn't need to pay to get gigs on the comedy circuit, and that it's already costly enough to be a comedian; the £15 would be better spent elsewhere. This was immediately followed by a response from Funny Women that pretty much told their prospective competitors to stop whingeing and pay up. Thirdly, and more significantly from my point of view, a new venture was born...

Complaining about the policies and practices of the only all-female comedy competition wasn't going to change very much, and it certainly wasn't going to take away the market pressure on newer acts to just pay up; if there's no alternative, there's no choice. After a few Facebook messages and a couple of phone calls, Funny's Funny was born, the brainchild of people who wanted to do something positive. As comedians of both genders, who have all entered competitions and run gigs, we knew that we could put together a free entry competition which would be a reasonable alternative to Funny Women's.

So we did.

We involved our friends and colleagues from the comedy circuit. We contacted the all-female comedy group in Newcastle - Laughing Lasses. We partnered with Laughing Cows to put on shows in Manchester and Birmingham. Our favourite comedy clubs pitched in to offer us venues, prizes, contacts and moral support. The icing on the cake was when the comedy website Chortle offered to organise the final for us and provide a cash prize for the winner. It turns out that there's a lot of support for female comedy after all.

You can read this one of two ways. Either everyone we spoke to was equally against what Funny Women were doing, or they were equally in favour of setting a good example for how to treat women in a comedy competition. It doesn't matter, so long as the end result was a fair deal for the women who wanted the experience and exposure you can gain from such an event.

It's quite reasonable to wonder why there should be an all-female comedy competition at all. Given that the BBC New Comedy Award 2011 was won by a woman this year (Angela Barnes, pictured), surely women don't need a 'special olympics'? At Funny's Funny we didn't see the point in debating this too much. Female comedians had already been conditioned to believe that an all-female comedy competition was what they needed; if there was to be a competition, it should, at least, be done properly and provide a nurturing environment for female comedy talent. On top of that, women were telling us that they were looking for support, advice and help getting into comedy.

Our collaboration of promoters and comedians, all focused on proving why women are a part of our comedy world, has turned out to be a remarkably positive force. With help from a lot of professional female stand-ups, we even produced an information pack for all our participants. Funny's Funny isn't just yet another competition. Our events connect female comedians with each other and the comedy circuit. This might sound like boasting, but it's worth being proud of. There shouldn't be a gulf between the genders in comedy, and the Funny's Funny approach is proving this.

We didn't realise it would get so big; we imagined we would get around 60 registrants: we had that on the first day! At the time of writing, 250 people have registered, most of whom we managed to book into one of our 21 showcases. Watching the numbers of entries grow on that first week in May was both scary and exhilarating. It's a huge responsibility to take something like this on, and we wanted it to be worth participating in.

Thanks are due to the nation's promoters, along with the comedians who agreed to MC for us - they have made the shows friendly and enjoyable. Feedback has been brilliant. The acts and audiences have all had a good time. Showcases, where no winners are declared on the night, make it easier for the acts, as they can support each other. Audiences also feel they don't need to take sides and have more fun as a result.

In a few days time, the scores from our judges at every single performance across the whole event will be used to determine the finalists. We're now over halfway through the showcases and the standard has been extremely high. It's worth repeating: the standard of performances within this competition has been extremely high. We're not judging it as "pretty good for a woman" or "the new face of women in comedy". We are looking for and finding an abundance of original, well-crafted performances that make audiences laugh.

If you haven't yet seen one of these events, then time is running out. There's a list of the remaining showcases on our website, and we can guarantee that the Grand Final will be an amazing night. We're undoubtedly biased, but we have only heard positive feedback on all the nights we've run. Performers and audiences alike love the idea of celebrating great comedy from women who are funny. Why shouldn't they? Funny's Funny!

Ashley Frieze is a stand-up comedian and one of the organisers of Funny's Funny. The other organisers are Jane Hill, Rob Coleman, Bethany Black and Okse.

More information about Funny's Funny and the list of gigs can be found at www.funnysfunny.org.uk