Manchester Comedy Festival 2010 interview

BCG interviews Manchester Comedy Festival coordinator Emilie Jones...

Hi Emilie. So, the Manchester Comedy Festival is currently taking place. Could we start by asking you to explain what it is all about for those that perhaps haven't heard of it before...

The Manchester Comedy Festival is two weeks of funny business around the city, from sketch to stand-up, improv to rap. Outside London, our city has the biggest year-round comedy scene, and the festival celebrates that.

Over the last few decades the scene has spawned many of the biggest names in comedy today. Back in the late seventies Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson and Ben Elton met at Manchester University and the digs that Mayall and Edmondson lived in is rumoured to have inspired the house that The Young Ones inhabited in the TV series. Middleton's Steve Coogan and the Salford born John Thomson met and began working together at Manchester Polytechnic gigging on a scene where Wythenshawe's Caroline Aherne was also beginning to find success.

It's also the city that inspired Aherne and the Stockport born Craig Cash to pen The Royal Family. A few years later another two Manchester circuit acts found household fame as both Bolton's Peter Kay and St Helens' Johnny Vegas honed their acts on the local circuit; the pair spending stints compering the Frog and Bucket's Barrel of Laughs.

More recently Alan Carr started out his comedy career on the Manchester scene, as did our resident Scouser John Bishop. The Thick of It's Chris Addison grew up in Worsley and began his stand-up career in his hometown, and the 18-year-old Jason Manford from Whalley Range got started on Manchester's circuit performing his first gig at Chorlton's legendary Buzz club.

The Manchester Comedy Festival aims to delight audiences young and old, with special emphasis on cultivating the new talent that this city is famous for generating. We want to provide a platform for the next generation of stars to come through and to help them build a name for themselves.

That's certainly a decent set of famous names. So how did the festival get started?

Back in 2000 The Comedy Store and the Manchester City Council put together an event to see in the millennium. It was a huge party for 1000 people in a tent on a car park just off Whitworth Street West, with some of the best names in stand-up performing. The event was such a success that the City Council and The Comedy Store decided they should create an annual event to celebrate the wealth of talent the city has. The Manchester Comedy Festival was born, and in 2000 the first festival took place. Starting with just a handful of established comedy venues, it has grown over the years to now include music venues, art galleries, bars and outside spaces around the city. This year we have over 30 venues taking part and 200 shows.

Any particular reason why it's at the end of October, so close to Brighton's Comedy Festival?

The festival was originally scheduled to fit in with the City Council's programme of cultural events taking part thorough out the year. October is an amazing month in the city, with the Comedy Festival, the Food and Drink Festival, the Science Festival and the Literature Festival. Something to brighten the chilly autumnal days.

Is there anything that sets the Manchester Festival apart from the other UK comedy festivals?

We take huge pride in being completely free to anyone wanting to take part. There are no fees or brochure costs to acts. If you have a show you believe in and a venue willing to host it, then you are welcomed in with open arms.

Oh and the fact that it is in Manchester makes it unique with the cultural backdrop the city provides.

So comedians interested arrange their own venues?

Yes, anybody who has a show they want to put on can do so, and they are open to arranging a venue themselves if they wish. There are also a great bunch of promoters who have been running gigs in and around the city years, and they either have their own venue or hire one for the duration of the festival. Big name stars appearing include Frankie Boyle (pictured).

We as the organisers then provide the brochure and ongoing support to everybody involved, however well known they are. Some of the acts involved are doing their first ever shows and as such they may need support such as PR or promotion, and we assist them with it.

As you mentioned earlier, the festival is bigger than ever this year. Is this because of growth in the industry, increased commitment from the organising team, more acts looking to perform at the festival, or something else?

The festival has been rebuilt this year and re-branded. It has come a long way in the eight months since we sat down and began planning for it. Manchester is such an amazing city to visit and it's popular by the acts themselves which certainly helps with the number of shows. However, we also wanted to open the festival up to the city, and that's why there's more venues than ever. It has a true festival feel now, and that has a knock on effect for everyone involved. Naturally the fact that comedy is going through a boom is great for audiences, but our growth is as much, if not more, because of our own plans and efforts as the growth in the industry itself.

Any personal highlights from this year Emilie?

There have been some lovely surprises this year. Paul Daniels stormed The Comedy Store, Kent Valentine and James Sherwood made an evening in one of our new venues (Apotheca in the Northern Quarter) a treat; whilst Mick Ferry's show at another new venue, The Engine House, was a glorious riot of laughter. Rob Rouse (pictured) equally made us laugh till our sides ache, over running but only because we didn't want him to stop. The Lady Garden girls turned the famous music venue The Band On The Wall into a theatre of joy for two nights with guests Idiot of Ants and Ginger & Black.

We've still got some shows left including the lovely Joe Lycett and Andrew Ryan, Jimmy Carr, Angelos Epithemiou, The Boy with Tape on his Face and BBC Comedy Presents, who always delivers a stellar line up.

Presuming The Manchester Comedy Festival will be back next year, do you have any plans on how you aim to continue to build on the festival's success for 2011?

We would aim to be bigger next year. This year we had more than twice as many shows than ever before, but there's no reason we couldn't grow again as more venues, acts and promoters come on board.

This year we had such a great mix of shows alongside conventional comedy including cabaret, quiz nights and interactive science shows, and they were as popular as we expected them to be. Next year we'd be open to widening the programme even further to incorporate an even more diverse line-up.

Great. Thanks for your time Emilie in what we know has been a very busy fortnight for you...

To find out more about the Manchester Comedy Festival, visit www.manchestercomedyfestival.co.uk