As part of this year’s city-wide Birmingham Comedy Festival, the annual arts fest’ is hosting two free half day events across consecutive Sundays (9 and 16 October 2016).
Almost a festival-within-a-festival, the Birmingham Comedy Festival (Free) Half-Dayers take place upstairs at Cherry Reds and The Victoria pub, in the heart of the city.
Both in John Bright Street (to enable audiences to flit between venues), there’s eight ‘Edinburgh Fringe-styled’ shows on the first Sunday, and 10 on the second.
Among the acts appearing for ‘Part 1‘ (9 Oct, from 1.30pm) are topical podcasters News With Jokes, Danny Clives and Lindsey Santoro (both previously nominated for BBC comedy awards), actor/ comic Gareth Berliner, and Brum stalwart Karen Bayley.
‘Part 2‘ (16 Oct, from 1pm) sees appearances from Josh Pugh, winner of Birmingham Comedy Festival Breaking Talent Award 2015 and English Comedian of The Year 2016, popular improv’ troupe Foghorn Unscripted, world ranked board game player and comic James Cook, and Masai Graham, who picked up Dave’s Funniest Joke Of The Fringe 2016 at Edinburgh this year.
Selected by TV channel Dave, previous winners of the award include Tim Vine, Zoe Lyons, Stewart Francis and Nick Helm.
Other acts taking to the stage include Glee regular Mickey Sharma, Craig Deeley, confrontational Ben Briggs, Leicester Comedy Festival award-nominated Lucy Thompson, Fat Penguin’s Jay Handley and gag-man Lovdev Barpaga, plus Phil Pagett, and Daniel Nicholas.
All shows are free in (with donations encouraged), no booking necessary – just turn up/ drop in.
For more information (including performance times), see: www.bhamcomfest.co.uk
- Birmingham Comedy Festival runs from Friday 7 to Sunday 16 October 2016 at venues across the city. Highlights include the Breaking Talent Award, Romesh Ranganathan, The Rocky Horror Show, Justin Moorhouse, Simon Munnery, Kerry Godliman, Nathan Caton, a Tony Law/ Barbara Nice double-bill, and The Boy With Tape On His Face.
- Also see: BrumNotes: Who are the West Midlands’ best new comedians?
LINK: Stream / listen / download – News With Jokes – podcast
