BBC Comedy's 2024 grants announced
- Komedia Kids, Screen Yorkshire, Funny Women, Fem De La Femme, MilkTea, You Can Laugh You Know, Afro Comedy and Mixer, Female Pilot Club, The South Asian Comedy Collective and Theatre in the Mill have each been awarded a grant from BBC Comedy
- Now in their second year, the £5,000 grants are intended for inclusion and development projects
The BBC comedy department has announced the organisations they'll be offering funding to this year.
The BBC Comedy grants, now in their second year, are small grants given to 10 groups, organisations, or charities from across the UK who are working on inclusion and development projects for those passionate about working in comedy.
The £5,000 grants are an opportunity for BBC Comedy to increase engagement with companies and organisations who want to support growth and access opportunities in comedy.
The BBC explains the 2024 grants as follows:
Komedia Kids are an organisation in Brighton, delivering workshops for children in the local community. They work to build their confidence, giving them opportunities and experiences within the creative industries that includes performing, writing and working backstage. This grant will go towards a 12-week comedy workshop programme, offering a mentoring programme for young aspiring comedians and writers.
Screen Yorkshire will be running three focused networking and comedy community building events across their focus regions of Yorkshire, the North East and North West. These sessions will be targeted at comedy talent (writers / producers / performers / directors) who have an interest in producing work for screen. This will be an opportunity for comedy talent to meet production companies and broadcaster stakeholders and gain industry insights around commissioning.
Funny Women will be running an events and mentoring project at this year's Edinburgh Fringe. The project will help develop new comedy talent and build confidence in writers and creators to pursue comedy careers. The project will provide emerging comedians with the opportunity to learn about running and promoting shows from experienced peers via networking events and mentoring opportunities.
Fem De La Femme is an all-women comedy line up night, which platforms comedians from the North West and beyond. They will be expanding their Find Your Funny workshops which will also be delivered to local women's charities and services. Their goal is to launch Liverpool's first women's comedy festival next summer.
MilkTea is a community-led screening label which showcases the best of East & Southeast Asian (ESEA) film and television in the UK. They will be launching a comedy lab to develop emerging ESEA creators working in comedy; across two days they will have an event showcasing ESEA comedy, an industry panel with TV commissioners, and a masterclass with leading ESEAs already working successfully in the comedy industry.
You Can Laugh You Know is a disabled-led comedy organisation based in West Yorkshire which runs comedy nights and provides introduction workshops centred around accessibility. With the grant they will increase the number of disabled artists from Yorkshire by hiring specialist comedians, who understand access, to run workshops that will elevate disabled people based in West Yorkshire who are new to comedy. They will continue to host monthly shows featuring a mix of local and national talent, so new acts can learn and network with disabled peers, including established artists.
Afro Comedy and Mixer is an organisation that pushes for greater representation and acknowledgement of live comedy within the African, Nigerian diasporan, and minority communities in Scotland. The grant will be put towards a Comedian Development Programme which will cultivate the talents of comedians who want to get into stand-up. They will take part in specialised workshops and sessions, led by a veteran comedy writer and performer from a minority background with a targeted focus on skills development, guiding the performers into finding their unique voice and crafting compelling sets.
Female Pilot Club (FPC) was founded to amplify women's voices in TV comedy and give women writers the chance to prove their jokes and characters, by having their comedy pilot scripts read out to audiences made up of writers, producers and comedy lovers. FPC will be hosting a script call out and using the grant to focus specifically on seeking projects from new writers from working class backgrounds.
The South Asian Comedy Collective are a Bradford based comedy group that meet weekly to write and share stories, before they take to the stage to share new material with members of the local community. With the proceeds of the grant they will be expanding to increase engagement from South-Asian writers from across the district, and introducing guest speakers to give tangible experience of being in a writers room and demistifying the industry for newcomers. The overall objective will be to host a new event called the Mega South Asian Comedy Night, to take place in Bradford towards the end of the year.
Theatre in the Mill are a Bradford-based arts organisation committed to developing, supporting and presenting socially responsible art and performance. They will be organising comedy workshops for women to develop their comedy skills and act as an experimental space for developing new comedy tropes. They want to enable more women to develop their comedy skills and will recruit a cohort of up to 30 participants.
The BBC has also revealed it will be offering a further £2,500 to two of last year's recipients, "to help build on the work that their grants started last year".
Best in Class is a North West based organisation supporting working class comedians. They are using their second year of funding to move the project into more focused groups to help develop skills for writers' rooms.
Your Cinema is a platform dedicated to showcasing the work of talent from diverse communities. This year the grant will support a focused comedy development session with 30 writers and producers from underrepresented communities.
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